Clavicle Fracture; Five weeks in

Remarkably, I didn’t post an update at four weeks (28 days), because the fracture still felt like it was completely broken. It felt basically the same as at the two week mark (14 days), but with slightly less swelling. I redoubled my efforts to use the sling and not lift anything with that arm, and just a few days later noticed the bone was considerably more stable. Once there was more stability, enough that I noticed, it began to snowball and in two more days I felt like my arm was back to normal. 

My shoulder is considerably less strong, as is most of my body I would imagine. I am going to wait until 6 weeks and then begin legitimate core and shoulder strengthening, starting exclusively with body weight exercises and then moving on to weighted exercises as my strength and the bone healing permits. 

At eight weeks I intend to publish a full write up on the experience for other cyclists. It’s going to be purely anecdotal, but unfortunately I found a relative dearth of information for athletes on the subject of collarbones. Even for the amateur, it’s easy to compare your healing to stories from professionals or other riders you know you have suffered a collarbone fracture. 

There’s quite a few complications with collarbone fractures which vary healing time, however with the information most patients are given it’s difficult to understand the process of fracture recovery the first time through. I found that my fracture was specifically difficult because my sling did not do a good job immobilizing my shoulder, and so I had crepitus (the two fragments of bone rubbing against each other) constantly throughout the first four to five weeks of healing. When the bones move such that you can feel it, it’s very easy to think that no healing has taken place, and that becomes disheartening. 

One week ago I really thought that I would need a surgery to have meaningful healing, and today I feel like a million bucks. Fingers crossed things keep going in the right direction.