Scaphoid fracture, and the pain’s gone but nobody’s said the bone has joined?
The scaphoid is the small wrist bone that heals slowly, from one end, and lies about it. It often stops hurting at 3 to 4 weeks, long before it’s joined. People start lifting. The pieces shift. It doesn’t join. And a scaphoid that doesn’t join wears the wrist into arthritis over the next 5 to 15 years, in a pattern surgeons know by name.
The Scaphoid Fracture Plan is my 12-week workbook, with the week numbers mapped to all three routes: cast, screw, or graft. The two jobs in the cast: protect the bone, move everything else, with the finger six and the elbow and shoulder work from day 1. The first two weeks of wrist movement with stop rules. Range, then load, and the one rule that never bends: nothing heavy until a scan says united. The “sprain” that still hurts at 10 days and what to ask for. Smoking, said once, with the number. The clocks: union, blood supply, stiffness. What to ask the surgeon. A weekly log, a cast-weeks tick grid, and a table for your clinic dates, cos missing one with this bone costs more than with any other.
Written by Nigel Chua, hand occupational therapist in practice since 2005. Thousands of hands, wrists and elbows assessed and treated. PDF, 21 pages, delivered to your email the moment you pay. Education, not an assessment; your surgeon’s or fracture clinic’s instructions come first, every time.
$27. If the plan doesn’t help you understand your recovery and what to do about it, email me within 90 days for a full refund.