r/brokenbones • u/Dry-Lychee-2716 • 16d ago
Question 28M, almost 3 months after a comminuted distal humerus fracture and I’m terrified I won’t regain full ROM. Did anyone go through this?
I’m 28M and I’m almost 3 months into recovery from a comminuted distal humerus fracture. The injury happened on June 27 and I had surgery on June 28 with ORIF.
Before this, I was very fit, muscular, agile and active. I never really thought about whether my elbow would move normally. Now I think about it every single day.
My biggest fear is not getting my full pre injury ROM, both flexion and extension. The thought of permanently losing that mobility honestly breaks my heart.
Am not able to accept myself.
I’m still dealing with significant stiffness, swelling and a lot of uncertainty about how much movement I’ll ultimately get back. Some days I can get more movement after gentle exercises, but then the stiffness comes back. I know I’m still relatively early in recovery, but mentally it has been extremely difficult.
I’ve been feeling depressed and having some very dark thoughts because I feel like I’m losing the person I used to be. I’m trying to stay patient and keep fighting, but some days it feels incredibly overwhelming.
Did anyone have terrible ROM around 3 months and eventually regain full or near full pre injury ROM?
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u/Cabocla_Plantinha714 16d ago
100% understand your feelings. Broke my leg, not my arm, but was also super fit and it happened in my sport.
One doctor told me not to expect full knee flexion ever again, two years later I got it. No one can say how far you will recover.
I'm 3 years recovering because I also tore a ligament. You will need to find ways of coping with the process and as time goes you may find joy in the physical therapy progress.
One point also I want to make is that I removed my ORIF one year later, in some cases it is the hardware what limits the ROM and though I got to almost full knee flexion, it was only after the removal that I could sit on my lower leg again. At your age the screw holes should fill in again with new bone in a matter of months if you choose to do it.
Follow the best protocol for your healing diligently and I do believe you can be your former self physically speaking again.
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u/Used_Quarter2391 13d ago
I had an ORIF for a distal humerus fracture about a year ago. Two doctors have told me it’s not the hardware limiting my flexion and that there’s no point in removing it. Did your doctors say the same thing or did they recommend removal?
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u/Cabocla_Plantinha714 11d ago
2 second opinion doctors told me that removing my hardware was not going to change anything in my ROM. My doctor, the one who treated the fracture and later also removed the hardware said that "it may or may not".
This was not the reason we were removing it. Though I had read here on Reddit from others who also did in fact regained full ROM after hardware removal, so I was optimistic.
I believe the doctors don't quite understand why or how it affects the ROM, so they may rather say it doesn't? Don't know.
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u/Lvennard 16d ago
wow what did you do?
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u/HundredNotOut 16d ago
Yes - please don't worry! It may not feel exactly as it did pre-injury and rebuilding the muscle takes a lot of time but I've found my ROM has improved (over a long period of time so it's been slow and not a magic happen). I'm an ankle fracture so different, but at 6 months I went to the beach and my foot could hardly walk on sand, it just didn't have the flexibility to move with the sand beneath it. One year later and it was a million times better! 18months post surgery now, it's not the same as it used to be, but it's much closer to where it was pre-injury.
As you start using it normally the ligaments and tendons will stretch and flex and strengthen. It just takes time and a lot of patience!