Shattered Talus Report / Analysis

Cory Beatwrote:

And just to reiterate what everyone here has said.  I’m not even a climber but made an account just to read and participate in this thread.  I am incredibly grateful to be able to read all of your experiences and not feel so alone.  I know it might not be life threatening but it’s definitely life shattering to tell and athlete that he may not be able to be an athlete anymore.  I literally cried today thinking about the fact that I may never surf again.  Telling myself that my body is a beast and it’s sending everything it can to ankle to heal it up.  Regardless of whether or not I have as successful a recovery as some of you, it has given me some relief to not feel so alone. All my friends I tell I broke my ankle assume it’s like every other bone and I’ll be as good as new in six weeks.  I can tell it’s going to be a lot longer than that, just hoping I’ll be able to walk and surf again sometime in the future.  Thanks again to everyone that has posted here

So sorry to hear about your injury Cory and I hope you are already healing in the last few months. That picture was horrifying TBH and I cant imagine what you are going through. I also wonder how common it is to misdiagnose, since a few posts in this thread seems to be misdiagnosed as sprain. I felt incredibly lucky looking back last year when I had a boulder fall and went to an ER in a German hospital, I was taken to X-ray when doctor wasn't sure about the result, I was sent to CT immediately and it turned out to be talus fracture and dislocation. It felt somewhat irresponsible for doctors to insist on their opinions and refused to have a more thorough check. 

----take the chance to add a data point for talus fracture --- 

(I was incredibly lucky to receive the surgery within 24 hour after the fall, and hospitalized for 4 days total). 

8 weeks not weight-bearing post-surgery. After that, 6 months limping with random nerve pains --actually feeling better on the wall.  Minimum PT (PT in the Netherlands literally discharged me saying there is not much they can do besides stretching on my own).

1.5yr post-surgery, 90% flexibility back, still hurts/limps after strenuous hike/run (10km+), sometimes for a couple of days. 

Alexander Stathiswrote: Hi everyone. An update. I have some photos now of the xrays of my ankle. My original post was on Feb 6th in this thread. For a summary, I had open reduction internal fixation of my complex talar body fracture in December. It was originally misdiagnosed by the ER as a sprain. I had an external fixator, and there was some concern about the alignment of the talus with respect to the tibia.  The first xray was taken 2 weeks after the accident, but it looks unsurprisingly similar to the one taken the day of in the ER in Chattanooga. Since they misdiagnosed it as a sprain, I can only imagine that they neither read the radiologist report nor did they look at the photos. The second xray was taken a little over a week or two ago, approximately nine weeks post op. The healing is going well, my orthopedist can see the Hawkins sign which means there is no AVN. My understanding is that when the fracture is completely talar body, and avoids the neck, the risk of AVN is relatively low. You can still see the fracture if you look closely. As you can see, the positioning of the talus relative to the tibia looks mostly normal, but it is still slightly forward in the joint. I imagine that will just be how it is now due to cartilage damage or something. You can also see the hole they drilled for the external fixator. As a side note, I opted to remove the ex fix in the clinic as opposed to the operating room. Removing the two pins from my shin did not hurt very badly. Removing the pin from my heel hurt worse than the injury itself, and was honestly somewhat surprising after the pins in the shin did not hurt. I've been in PT, and I am now walking without a boot. I still limp, there is significant swelling, and there's still pain. I have no progressed further to adding weight or doing agility exercises with the ankle. For now, walking seems to be therapeutic enough. My therapist seems rather confident that I will make a nearly full recovery which is great to hear. I have begun climbing again as well. I have been bouldering and sport climbing. I am not falling yet, but I am using it to its full capacity otherwise. It seems fine as long as I'm not trying to derive strength from the ankle itself or twist it overly much. Anyways, there's lots of hope!

How are you doing now? Youre one of the few I have found that also has a body fracture and not neck...