Any Pro Tips for Thoracic Spinal Fracture Recovery?

Triathlon Forum
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Introduced my head and shoulder to the pavement while out on Sunday’s long ride. Compression fracture of T5, C7 is a bit messed up as well. Worst road rash is on my jaw, which tells you how close I was to this ending very, very badly. I was told the only reason it wasn’t that bad was because of how good of a shape I was in rolling into it.

Anybody else gone through this? Don’t have my ortho appointment until tomorrow morning, but trying not to get my hopes too high on recovery until then.

Appreciate the support this community has always had of me. Hoping to return the favor with an “Ask Me Anything” thread once this is all over.

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Wow! Consider yourself lucky. A very good friend of mine is a paratriathlete (IM Finisher) thanks to a T5 break.

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Introduced my head and shoulder to the pavement while out on Sunday’s long ride. Compression fracture of T5, C7 is a bit messed up as well. Worst road rash is on my jaw, which tells you how close I was to this ending very, very badly. I was told the only reason it wasn’t that bad was because of how good of a shape I was in rolling into it.

Anybody else gone through this? Don’t have my ortho appointment until tomorrow morning, but trying not to get my hopes too high on recovery until then.

Appreciate the support this community has always had of me. Hoping to return the favor with an “Ask Me Anything” thread once this is all over.

Back in 1996, I was hit by a van and had a fracture of my L1 vertebra, e.g. lower mid-back. Was able to walk out of the ER after spending about 5 hrs there while they did X-rays, etc. Was advised to “do nothing” for 2 weeks but got back into the pool after 1 week. It hurt like hell to do flip turns but I kept doing them, mainly because having swum so long before doing flip turns i couldn’t imagine not doing them:), and eventually the pain went away. Was back on the trainer in about 2 weeks and swam and biked only for the next 7 wks, e.g. to 2 months after. I then went for a 2-mi run on the track and was running at an excellent pace but my back still felt stiff so I waited another 6 weeks, i.e. to about 3.5 months after the crash, then started running every other day, then 5 per wk, etc, until after about 7-8 months I was about 99% recovered. The back has never bothered me since then, which I attribute to my continuing to train regularly over the years.

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Yeah, I consider myself one very lucky sonofabitch. Still kinda amazed. I attribute some of that to one of the guys I was riding with stabilizing my neck and keeping me on the pavement within about 30 seconds of me hitting the deck. He saw me trying to get up (to absolutely no avail) and really kept calm and got me calmed down as well.

Feels like someone keeps jamming a knife into my back, though.

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Accident was at 9:20. At the hospital by 9:45. Portable X-Ray and ultrasound immediately on the chest. Then CT right after; one pass without contrast for the spine, then another pass to make sure I wasn’t bleeding out.

By 12:30 I knew I had the T5 fracture. Went back for images to check my jaw, and then they noted some weirdness with C7. Not a break per the radiologist, but enough screwy that they almost put me back into the collar.

Discharged at 4:30.

Ortho tomorrow afternoon for course of treatment.

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Accident was at 9:20. At the hospital by 9:45. Portable X-Ray and ultrasound immediately on the chest. Then CT right after; one pass without contrast for the spine, then another pass to make sure I wasn’t bleeding out. By 12:30 I knew I had the T5 fracture. Went back for images to check my jaw, and then they noted some weirdness with C7. Not a break per the radiologist, but enough screwy that they almost put me back into the collar. Discharged at 4:30. Ortho tomorrow afternoon for course of treatment.

For some reason, i was told to go to see a neurologist rather than an ortho doc, not sure why. In any case, i explained how much it hurt when i did the flip turns and as luck would have it, it turned out that he was a former college swimmer. I told him that it was good that my head was underwater when doing the turns cause otherwise people would be disturbed cause i was screaming so much on every flip:) His comment was, well, it hurts but you can do them, right??? I said ya, exactly, it hurts like hell but i can def still do them. He said well my advice would be to keep doing them and eventually the pain will go away, whereas if you quit doing them, you may never regain the flex in your back needed to do flip turns. So, I kept flipping every turn and sure enough, eventually the pain went away.

My whole point in telling you that story is that the advice you get often depends on the doc you see. Personally, i think going with your gut feeling works best in general, i.e. if your gut says stop, then stop; if it says we can do a little more, then do a little more. Just my two cents:)

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Guy I’m seeing is luckily an athlete himself (triathlete and Nordic skier). So I’ll be able to press him on specifics.

Yeah, right now walking around feels good, so long as I don’t give any sudden twists. Feels like someone keeps jamming a rod in my back.

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Guy I’m seeing is luckily an athlete himself (triathlete and Nordic skier). So I’ll be able to press him on specifics. Yeah, right now walking around feels good, so long as I don’t give any sudden twists. Feels like someone keeps jamming a rod in my back.

Great, glad he’s an athlete for sure. And the “rod in the back”, lower back for me, is exactly the way I felt also. Occasionally, if i have to stand in one place, just stand, for 30 min or more a slight amount of stiffness will return to my back but i just try to avoid standing for any period w/o some walking mixed in. As long as i’m moving, sitting down, or lying down, i’m absolutely fine.

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I’m far from an orthopaedic specialist, just someone who has lived a life that has given me more broken bones than most.

On the 2nd of April 2013 I got T8 burst fracture from a bad skydiving landing. Discharged with a body brace after two weeks of full immobilisation. I kept wearing the brace, but kept moving as much as possible, walking as much as I could bear as soon as possible and starting very light jogging about a month after the break. I finished my first 70.3 in May this year (just a year over the injury) will do my first full distance in September, and have zero sign of ever having broken my back (except some tightness around where the break was when I do longer runs >20km).

I agree that keeping on moving is key, over the years I’ve broken each arm, each leg and my back, and the only one that took a long time to heal was the simplest arm break where I wore the cast for the entire time recommended by the doctor. For the rest, I was moving earlier than advised (especially careful in each case to avoid re-brake caused by shock loading the injury), but keeping the injured limbs as mobile as possible, trimming the cast back slowly to back the support off gradually prevented full wasting of the muscles, ligaments and tendons in each of the rest. I may have lucky genetics wrt bone healing, but I was running pain free 6 weeks after a bad calcaneous fracture, and I was back to BASE jumping within 2 months (a pre-triathlon life that I have since retired from) - the prognosis was 6 months at best and maybe never running again.

I have been particularly lucky, and by chance have had field leading physicians look after me for a calcaneous break and my back break. Both advised keeping mobile as much as I could bear. When pressed, one (off the record) suggested that time frames for splinting and casting breaks are conservative and that doctors are bound by liability and risk management to cater for those that don’t heal so well, a secondary purpose of casts is to remind the patient to treat injuries extra careful.

Key take home, is that muscles, ligaments and bones evolved to respond positively to stress, so as long as a healthy callus forms around the joint (steer clear of anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen, aspirin etc that can impede callus formation and therefore delay bone healing) like exercise should speed up your healing. You just have to be careful that you don’t re-break the old injury so avoid sudden jolts and shocks at all costs.

But your break could be different. Mine vertebral body was shattered, but the pieces stayed together because I was training my core heavily in the months leading up to the accident. And being a T8, it was well supported by my ribs etc. Your doctor should be able to give you an idea of how stable your break is.

I’m not a doctor so take my advice with a grain of salt and definitely talk to your doctor. If you find a good doctor that will talk openly, you might get similar advice.

Good luck with the break man. I hope you’re as lucky as I have been!

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Well…

So, looks like I have a non-displaced compression fx of both T5 and T6. T6 was a surprise as the ER made no mention of it in my initial appointment. Whiplash up top along with a concussion. On the “deal with it later” front, I’ll need an MRI soon for my right shoulder to see if I tore the rotator cuff or other assorted soft tissue.

Jewett brace for 6 weeks. Then go from there.

Have to trade-in one of my cars; been told no more stick shift driving. Not quite sure how to make that work.

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Not being able to drive stick shift blows man. And cause doc ordered it, even if you feel ok, it’s not worth the risk cause insurance may use it as a reason not to pay in case of an accident.

But on the upside, a compression fracture is inherently more stable than some other kinds of spinal fracture.

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In the grand scheme of things, giving up a manual for a while isn’t that big of a deal. Small potatoes.

And hey, there’s some cars with good dual-clutch paddle shift transmissions…

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Follow-up after my brace appointment:

T5’s break is the more severe of the two, through the anterior body of the vertebrae. T6 is compressed with a small chip off it. Good times.

Brace had to be custom made. It costs more than my last bike. Fully out-of-pocket. Good Lord.

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Follow-up after my brace appointment:

T5’s break is the more severe of the two, through the anterior body of the vertebrae. T6 is compressed with a small chip off it. Good times.

Brace had to be custom made. It costs more than my last bike. Fully out-of-pocket. Good Lord.

How is your recovery going?

I’m three weeks post accident with stable compression fractures in T3-T6. Pretty fortunate that I have very little change in height/shape of the vertebra and no free bodies. In the process of weening myself from the Jewett brace and doing some moderate (no biking) activity.

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It’s been a lot slower than anticipated. It’s been one of those things were I wish that I had never been given any information on timelines, etc. because it’s been a mental struggle dealing with the anticipation and subsequent disappointment of not hitting these timelines. I was expected to be in the brace for 6 weeks; I needed 8. I’ve been in physical therapy for just over 6 weeks now (starting with rotator cuff injury issues first, then progressing to spine stuff). Finally starting to feel like I’m turning a corner.

Due to the brace I was in, and the length of time I was in it, I went a long while without any kind of pulse-raising activity. I had a pretty large crack in T5 along with loss of 30% of height. T6 was chipped and also about 30% short. I also had anxiety issues come up while wearing it (would get in a cycle of nerves, tried to breathe, couldn’t really breathe due to the brace and away we go), as well as also trying to nurse a concussion and subsequent issues. Still having short-term memory loss/recall problems that have proven just as frustrating as the remainder of rehab.

I rode for the first time yesterday, about 30 minutes. Hurt like hell. Going to have to get the fit looked at all over again. Been swimming 3x/week, no more than 1000 meters at a time yet. Have a first attempt at running under the diligent supervision of my PT on Tuesday.

Out of curiosity: what kind of activity?

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I rode for the first time yesterday, about 30 minutes. Hurt like hell. Going to have to get the fit looked at all over again. Been swimming 3x/week, no more than 1000 meters at a time yet. Have a first attempt at running under the diligent supervision of my PT on Tuesday.

JOOC, do you do flip turns???

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For the first two weeks, no. Now? Yep, sure do.

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Out of curiosity: what kind of activity?

Just walking around the neighborhood and light house work (dishes, laundry, vacuum). I’ll start PT for my dislocated shoulder this week. If that goes well I can hopefully avoid surgery.

The docs cleared me of a concussion as I didn’t have any of the major symptoms. I have felt off mentally also. Memory/recall have been a bit hazy and it has been tougher to focus on work tasks. Were you diagnosed/treated for your concussion at the time?

It is good to hear you are making progress even if it is at a slower pace than hoped. :smiley:

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There was some thought in the ambulance that I’d had one, despite answering all of their questions pretty well. I don’t think I lost consciousness. That said, the crash happened so suddenly (25.4 MPH to 0 in .41 seconds), and I was so confused as to why I was on the ground and having a crushing pain in my chest, being unable to really take a deep breath…it’s completely possible.

I was not diagnosed with one at this hospital. At my spine ortho appointment, when he noticed the sensitivity to light I was having, I got tested (which, incidentally, was my last post on the matter in this thread). The following day, the headaches came in and the inability to look at the computer, which is a bit of a problem when your job is to advertise online.

I was out of work for a few weeks, was on half-time for a couple more, and am really now undertaking a full load. But I struggle with having thought blockages, recall issues, focus, and fatigue.

That was about all I could do as well. Walking the dog was a favorite activity, simply because it got me outside and, well, I could still do it.

PT has been a godsend in getting myself to a point where I could consider running again. Feeling more strong. Well, and also like I’ve put on about 15 pounds or so…it’ll come back down.

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For the first two weeks, no. Now? Yep, sure do.

Very good!!! Just IMO, but I think flip turns (FTs) are excellent for keeping your back loose, flexible, and strong. Is there a reason you’ve kept your swims relatively short??? Since you’re doing the FTs, I would guess you normally would swim 3 km or more??? Might help you feel better and help keep the weight down:)