u/rockjan

Have posted here before and it was nice to hear some perspectives. Previously I asked about the progress in my bonegrowth, got some hopeful responses on that.

I’m about 5 and a half months post-op from a pretty serious both-bone forearm fracture radius and ulna.

The issue is the radius. At earlier follow-ups the ulna looked like it was healing well, but the radius still showed a visible dark line / unclear consolidation. My surgeon said it was hard to tell from X-ray whether the radius had fully healed, so I had a CT scan done yesterday.

My doctor said she couldn't say much about this right now. A new CT scan next month should indicate some more.

I’m posting the CT video here because I’m trying to understand what others have experienced with this kind of picture. Has anyone had a radius/ulna ORIF where one bone, especially the radius, looked delayed at 4–5 months but eventually healed without another surgery?

Quite anxious about the progress. Ofcourse hoped for a quicker healing process.

I broke both my radius and ulna pretty badly about 18 weeks ago. It was a serious fracture, almost open, and I had ORIF surgery with plates and screws. The surgery went well and functionally I’ve been doing pretty well: my rotation came back quite nicely, pain is low, and daily life is mostly normal again. I still have some nerve/sensation issues in the hand/fingers, but that has been slowly improving.

At my 12-week X-ray, the doctor said the ulna looked good, but the radius still had a visible dark line. He told me to stay careful for another 6 weeks.

I just had my 18-week follow-up. The ulna still looks good, hardware looks stable, no obvious plate/screw issues. But the doctor said he still isn’t fully sure whether the radius is consolidating properly. He said it’s hard to tell on the X-ray because of the plate/angle, and there may be some “delay” or slowed growth/healing there. He's not sure if the screw might slow down growth. He mentioned possibly getting a CT scan to see more clearly whether the bone is actually bridging.

So I can see some improvements between the two x-rays but indeed the screw makes it hard to say if it is enough improvement?

So my questions are:

• Has anyone else had a radius that still showed a dark line around 18 weeks after ORIF?
• Did it turn out to be delayed union, or did it continue healing normally?
• Did you need a CT scan to confirm union?
• If it was delayed, what did your doctor do? Just more time, bone stimulator, lifestyle changes, revision surgery?
• How long did it take before you were cleared to lift/train normally again?

For context, I have to admit I probably didn’t optimize healing perfectly. I started smoking some cigarettes here (like 5 a week) and there and drank alcohol sometimes because I thought I was already mostly past the danger zone (yea stupid I know!). Now I’m stopping nicotine completely, cutting alcohol, eating more protein, and trying to get my nutrition/supplements right.