[ANON POST] broken femur

[kutsuwamushi]

I have a character who broke her femur during a fight with a supernatural being. She had a lot of other injuries, so the broken femur was pretty much the least of the doctors' worries. She's in her early thirties, about five foot five, naturally a bit heavy, but in very good shape. She's a soldier. I want her to be able to walk short distances with

Comments

[channonyarrow]

I'm not sure that a broken femur would be the least of anyone's worries - it's also part of the vascular system and I've heard (anecdotally) that breaking a femur can lead to death by hemorrhage because of the blood loss (it's also right up against an artery, of course, so there's the risk that any injury strong enough to break the bone will sever the artery). Beyond that, I don't know, although googling around for "broken femur" gave me lots of lists of potential complications and issues with recovery on sites of varying quality. I doubt it'll be very hard to give her a permanent limp; the best case full recovery I was seeing for that was about a year, and you describe her as someone who wouldn't take care of the leg (such as only putting 50% of her weight on it after a few months of recovery).

Though you may also want to look at knee injuries - it's quite plausible that not taking proper care of the femur fracture could have ramifications for the knee or for the join between the femur and knee.

[kilobites]

This is entirely anecdotal, but I broke my right femur from falling off a bed when I was 9 months old, and the break wasn't discovered/realized for two weeks. Since it started to heal wrong, and I was placing weight on it while crawling before they put it in a cast, it has led to a lifetime of knee problems -- the spot where it actually broke never hurts, but my knee is seriously messed up from the complications during recovery, which mostly added up to putting weight on it that shouldn't have been there. I don't have a limp or anything, but my knee sure isn't happy!

[lilacsigil]

A broken femur is a serious injury and doctors would pay attention to that immediately after anything actually bleeding out or head injuries. Because the muscles and ligaments of the thigh, hip and knee are so strong, it's very common for a broken femur to be immediately pulled out of position and to have to be surgically pinned into place to heal. A lifetime of knee or hip problems often follow, because things are no longer aligned quite right. Joint pain, arthritis, limited range of movement and serious nerve pain are all fairly common.

The second-most important factor in her recovery, after the surgery, is what kind of physical therapy she gets.

[germankitty]

What hardly anyone considers is that most people will instinctively shift their body weight away from places that hurt (de to injury or whatever), which long-term leads to a whole slew of problems.

I broke my right ankle ages ago, and even after all the screws and plates had been removed a year later (and the fractures themselves stopped being extremely sensitive to changes in weather), I still favored that ankle to the point that my knees, hips and lower back were affected. Physical therapy helps for a time, but unless someone is VERY disciplined about their movements and posture, you'll gradually slip back into the stance that's most comfortable, ie relieves the body part with the original injury.

[philippos42]

I broke my femur as a child, and was in traction for weeks. She's going to be laid up for a while, and then pretty much forced to have physical therapy.