The cast on my friend's fracture did not work, what could have gone wrong?

Question

My friend is young 23 years old, and he broke his tibia/ fibula.

He had a cast to fix it (although it should only 80% alignment), but the doctors said after 10 days that he will have to go for surgery.

What could have gone wrong? Was the cast not made properly? Or did he put pressure on his right leg when he was told not to do it?

Answer 1

putting weight on broken leg is not good.
i did it a month after my surgeries (i had tib/fib fx as well)- slipped and put all the weight on my leg, after than i have been wearing a cast for 3 months now. before i didnt even have to wear it.

Answer 2

A fracture is a break in bone. A considerable amount of force is required to do this. At the time of the fracture the violence of the trauma displaces the bone ends and the intervening space is filled by blood and any soft tissue (like muscle) that has been displaced.
Normally a blood clot forms between the displaced ends. The bone forming cells then creep into the clot and lay down new bone forming a bridge (called callus) between the broken ends. This callus will go on to form the new bone structure. A good bridge is formed when the space between the two ends is small, the two ends are healthy, there is no soft tissue obstructing the gap and there is no infection. Also the general health of teh person is good. There should be no movement of the two ends while healing is taking place.
Your friend probably requires surgery because the bone ends are not healing properly. This may be because the ends were not in the right angle or close enough, there was some tissue between the two ends, there was some infection or there was some movement between the bone ends. It may not always be possible to identify these factors at the time of the fracture.
Wherever possible it is better to avoid surgery on a fracture site. The orthopod probably tried to avoid doing so but unfortunately this was not possible. You ought to ask him about why surgery is now required. Somtimes doctors may underestimate the power of a persons comprehension (or they may just be tired or lazy)
I would hope and expect the surgeons decision to be in the best interests of your friend. Please ask him to explain why he needs to do the surgery and perhaps use a drawing to do so. If he is a good doctor he should be happy and glad to do this for you. Hope this helps

Answer 3

I have no medical experience and I don't know for sure what happened. I did have a friend who broke her leg. After several weeks they had to redo the cast because the fracture wasn't healing properly. The reason she was told was that there was swelling when the cast was made and it had gone down so the cast was not fitting right.

Answer 4

Surgery is standard for this sort of injury. Sometimes they will wait until swelling from the initial trauma goes down, but surgery is a good thing. It might cut his recovery time in half. I had an ankle fracture in three places, and even with the surgery it was 3 months in a cast/on crutches. The doc told me that without the surgery, it would have been up to six months.

Answer 5

Bones are made up of calcium crystals, and when a bone breaks, the calcium crystals have to reform, and even movement such as walking or getting up can be excessive and cause the crystals not to solidify correctly. It is possible that the cast was not put on correctly, but it's also likely that your friend did strain his leg. Bone breaks also cause a lot of internal bleeding, so there may be other reasons why surgery is necessary.

Answer 6

He needs an external fixator, which involves surgery but well worth it. The cast is probably hiting a nerve or something.

Answer 7

Sounds like you're looking for a lawsuit. None here!!! Sometimes it just doesn't heal the way it should. I had a shoulder like that. He could have not listened to the doctors!! Why not ask him and the doctor?