Bike crash – separated shoulder
I had my first big bike crash today. And it resulted and a separated shoulder. I went to the ER and they took x-rays and I have a two CM separation. No bones are broken but I am so bummed because my training was going really well. My a race this year is Iron Man Chattanooga, and I will be jumping into the Iron Man plan on July 4.
For those of you who have had a similar experience, what should I expect? I have not seen the orthopedic doctor yet, but I read that there are basically two options to have surgery or to not have surgery.
What kind of training can I expect to be able to do well this thing is healing up? Obviously, swimming will be out, but perhaps riding the bike on the trainer? How about running? If I can tolerate the pain, well I do anymore damage? Any other advice?
For those of you who have had a similar experience, what should I expect? I have not seen the orthopedic doctor yet, but I read that there are basically two options to have surgery or to not have surgery.
What kind of training can I expect to be able to do well this thing is healing up? Obviously, swimming will be out, but perhaps riding the bike on the trainer? How about running? If I can tolerate the pain, well I do anymore damage? Any other advice?
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Don, very scary when those crashes happen. Sorry you had that experience.
As always, not matter what, KMF!
He wants me to stay in a sling for 2 weeks and come back to reevaluate and start a rehab program.
In the mean time, I can walk and ride bike on the trainer.
Don,
Sorry to hear about the crash. SS had great advice. Good news from the doctor on the bike/walking. My only advice would be to get the bike set up on the trainer when you have help then you are set up to just jump on when/if you can. Have the tires pumped every other morning or on day you know you will be using it. Beyond that leave some extra time to get dressed and get a water bottle ready. Even better if you have one in the fridge in advance as everything will take extra time with the arm in a sling.
Oh maybe set aside an evening to earn some SAU's with a dinner and a movie, some flowers or something nice as you now have become an additional burden.
There's lots of time till your IM.
I am feeling encouraged about the outlook and I will take your advice.
@Tim my AC joint separation is between two and three, so I expect my experience to be similar to yours.
@SS thanks for your advice and continued support I really appreciate you
You are right...the basic options are "surgery" or "not surgery". :-)
Assuming your situation is similar to mine - and it sounds like it - here is my experience.
I did NOT have surgery. In the very long run (> 1 year), the only thing I am aware of is that my shoulder "droops" because it's not attached, which makes it look like my collarbone is sticking up out of the top of my shoulder a bit. If the swelling has gone down from your injury, you may already see this. I have full range of motion and full strength (at least as far as I know). If the only major damage you did is to slice that tendon, the only people who typically really *need* the surgery are people who want to throw a baseball very hard or serve a tennis ball at near professional levels...and that sort of thing. The rest of us can live completely normal lives with a separated shoulder that is never put back together. The musculature holds the shoulder more or less in place anyway, just like it is now (but a lot less sore!). I have heard that some young women opt for the surgery for the cosmetic reason of not wanting the collarbone sticking up out of their shoulder.
The advice I received at the time was basically that this was the most likely outcome of "doing nothing". The very good news is that if you opt not to have the surgery, you can always have the surgery later if you need it. There is no problem with not doing it right away, other than the delayed recovery.
The other factor that went into my decision is that the success rate of the surgery is NOT super high. I don't remember the exact number (70%? 80%?), but there are a reasonable number of them that end up having to get re-done. Furthermore the recovery is longer from the surgery (12 weeks maybe?) than it is from the non-surgery (8 weeks?)...so basically there's no incentive to do the surgery if it's not really called for by the demands of your particular injury.
I wish I could remember the details of my recovery better, but my dude was a Sports Doc who wanted me to get back to training, etc. He totally gets it. The sequence I was allowed to do was (1) biking on a trainer; (2) biking on roads; (3) running; (4) swimming. Tim's schedule of 8-10 weeks before swimming sounds right to me, but mine was a little while longer ago, and I don't have detailed notes.
Believe me, you won't WANT to swim for a while. :-) You probably can't raise your arm past your shoulder yet. And if you did, it would hurt. That'll take a while, but it will come back.
Awesome News!!!
I took it really easy, did 950 yards.
No pain from the shoulder.
I could feel some stiffness in the shoulder joint, but I was able to make the full range of motion without pain.
Ran for 60 min after.