What would happen if you broke a bone but never went to the doctor?
In: Biology
It heals in whatever position it is after being broken. I broke a toe and never went because I thought doctors couldn’t do anything for broken toes. But, after a couple months it was still swollen, so I finally went. I fully broke it in half, but since it had been so long, it was already healing, so they would have to re-break it for it be straightened out. Doctor gave me some meds to get the swelling to finally go away and now I just have a slightly crooked toe.
That depends on how bad the break actually was, and where it’s at.
Something like broken fingers you can just tape up and they will heal on their own eventually. At best the doctor will give you a splint to immobilize the finger.
I just watched a video today on Youtube where a dude broke his foot and the x-ray showed that the break left the bones in his foot far enough apart from each other that if left to heal on it’s own, scar tissue would form around the broken area and it would be a problem forever if he didn’t have surgery on it.
So while there can be complications from a broken bone that doesn’t get set right, as long as you immobilize it in some form, so that you don’t constantly move the bones around as they heal, it will heal up on it’s own. The worse the break is though, the more likely a doctor will need to do something about it.
The problem is, without an x-ray, you really don’t know just how bad the break is and if it will need some type of treatment from the doctor.
I broke my foot and all they did was give me a shoe, kind of like sandals that I had to wear as it healed. But outside of that, the doctor didn’t do anything. I did break my thumb once where the tendon tore out a chunk of the bone where it attached and they did put a cast on over my thumb and over my forearm to keep me from moving my thumb so that the bone could heal enough. He said if it had been worse, they would have had to put screws in to connect that piece of bone back with the rest of it. I’ve broken other fingers and got nothing more than one of those splints for it.
If you didn’t get an infection, and if the bone was still close enough to each other, it would grow/heal back together. Usually, uneven and causing a lifetime of pain.
Lol, I broke my upper arm – humerus in the UK, went to AE, got x-rays done, they didn’t reposition anything, just put my arm on a sling. No surgery or anything, this was for 2 months, then physio. Not sure what the bone looks like now lol
If it’s still aligned and stable enough, it’ll heal straight, might just be longer or shorter afterwards and cause problems with the related joints later on.
If it’s crooked, it’ll heal crooked which can be a problem if it’s along the axis of a movement. Crooked collar bone is fine, it’s just hanging there anyways and doesn’t do much. Crooked toe and you might have trouble with balance or it just gets harder to find shoes. Crooked ulna and you could well lose movement in the wrist and hand.
If you have edges sticking out near a joint you might bash into that when moving, which at least hurts.
Or it might not fuse at all and you end up with a false joint. Your arm bending in spots it’s not supposed to is not fun.
Splinters and edges touching other bones can fuse with them. That can bridge joints and you lose all movement there.
An open fracture where the bone breaks through the skin can easily kill you from the infection.
Broken bones typically will heal in whatever position the bones are currently in at the time. They’ll form a callus around the fractured site, and then fuse. In certain situations where the fractured site is allowed to move and flex, the bones might not heal together. In that case, you’ll end up with 2 bones where there should only be 1.
Going to a doctor is important when you have a fracture because they can see how your are bone was fractured. They can reset it so it’s in the best alignment possible for proper healing. They’ll stabilize it with a splint or a cast so the bones don’t move and will heal better. In some cases, they’ll do surgery to have it heal even better.
Depends. Worst case scenario you die cause the bone is poking out and you bleed out or a chunk escapes your bone marrow and causes an embolism.
To sum up all these long explanations and /explainlikeyourefive, it will heal but not necessarily in the correct position. The doctor will help you set the bone and keep it straight so it heals correctly.
I broke a bone in my foot that never got treated. Occasional discomfort. This guy on the other hand…
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