bone chips, etc.

[tielan]

Has anyone ever chipped a bone before?

Does it hurt very much? I have this ache in my inside shin, just above my ankle bone, where I clashed legs in a lunchtime soccer comp yesterday. It's supposed to be an easy going comp so I don't wear shinpads.

But it's aching and it doesn't feel quite like a muscle ache or bruise. So I'm just wondering if maybe it's a chipped bone or something...

Comments

[thothmes]

I think if you actually chipped it, you would be able to feel the loose chip as a hard nodule when the swelling goes down.

Bone bruises can feel pretty achy, and the best way to distinguish them from your average, run of the mill bruise, is by the way they don't necessarily show on the outside, but they continue to bother long after one would expect a bruise to go away.

I've bruised bones before, and broken and cracked bones before. Another possibility to consider is a "green stick fracture" of the shin bone, but I would expect that to intensify with weight bearing.

I don't think I've ever chipped one.

My husband (a physician) once told me that the best and most reliable indication of a break, the one that will make him take the x-rays when the rest of the story doesn't sound dramatic enough for a break, is when the patient tells him "Doc, it just doesn't feel sound. I don't trust it."

Hope this helps.

[tielan]

OKay. It might be a bone bruise then. Nothing hurts overly much, it just aches fairly steadily. And I've never had a broken bone yet (and here's hoping it stays that way) so I don't know what it feels like...

[thothmes]

Ouchy.

And your whole body wants to protect it. What I find awful about broken bones is not the pain per se but the nagging paranoia that comes with it. One's body just seems to know that Something Is Not Right, and it becomes insecure.

I'd try to describe it with a pain scale of some sort, but the body just doesn't remember pain very well. I can remember that it hurt, and I can remember how desperate I felt at the moment, but not what it felt like in any meaningful way.

I guess I'd say on a par with dropping a big can of tomatoes on your big toe from a counter? I've broken and cracked ribs, closed a van door on a finger, and gotten a green stick fracture of my collar bone. I've always imagined that something big like a thigh, or something very nerve related like a back or a skull would be more painful, but I hope not to find out.