Hello fellow sufferee..

In my previous blog entry I received a comment and a couple of questions from Gordon who in answering him is worthy of the main page and not a line or two in that little reply box so here goes.

Gordon's comment: 

Hi Mark
Just found your blog today. I broke my hip 8 weeks ago today on my bike and our stories are similiar although I am 49.
Back wheel went out on some diesel? at 25 mph and I came down hard on right hip. No other damage thankfully.
DHS and no weight bearing for first 6 weeks. So now allowed back on turbo and 25% weight bearing building up to full weight by 10 weeks post op.
Your story is heartening and it sounds like you are making a good recovery. I am getting a lot of aches and pains in leg now I am using it again - did you go through that? Knee seems a little unhappy about working again too. No one mentioned anything to me about prospect of ball of femur 'dying' from lack of blood flow - how do you tell?
All the best
Gordon 

Hi Gordon, firstly so sorry you've joined the broken hip gang, it's an exclusive club with few members but more than you'd think! You say you are 49, well I'm only a year younger and the only reason I mention age is that in my case age combined with the side affect of the immunosuppressant drugs I take for my kidney transplant (along with the fall of course) are responsible for my weakened bones. Since my fall I've read a lot and have come to understand that cyclists are prone to 'thinning of the bones' as my doc puts it and once we get past forty it can become a real concern. Calcium & vitamin D supplementation is recommended as a precaution but in our cases that recommendation comes too late - I'm mostly mentioning this for the older riders that may be reading this...

You are already on the turbo and soon to be fully weight bearing, that's really good going and slightly better than my own progress but all the same very similar. I like you also had pains but in places you wouldn't associate with a broken hip, my pains initially were in my thigh, hip, knee and strangely my feet - both feet. As soon as I was allowed to partially bear weight I was out on my crutch 'walking' my dog and walking as much as possible in the house. Every day I upped the distance until the time came when I was allowed to fully weight bear and then I would walk up to 2 miles, yes there was pain but I was determined that I would get back to my old self so 'walked' through the pain trying to walk as normal as I possibly could.

My pains have diminished or completely gone now at 4 months. My knee pain has gone but does occasionally flare up, pain killers takes care of that if I'm off out somewhere. Both of my feet hurt from the time I was partially weight bearing and for a few weeks after fully weight bearing with the good legs foot stopping aching first then a couple of weeks later the bad leg stopped. I also had hip pain at first particularly when walking up a slope and especially when riding my bike up any sort of incline but this rarely troubles me now although I can't say I've pushed myself on the bike as I've deliberately avoided any of the hillier hills around my locale but normal walking doesn't hurt my hip any more.I still get pains in my thigh during and more so after exercise or physio. I also suffered some muscle wastage particularly in my calf and in my lower quad just above the knee - some of it is back now but I still have a lot of work to do to get those muscles back...


This death of the head thing is called avascular necrosis, I was told it can be caused by a lack of blood to the head of the femur at the time of the accident or thereafter. If the break is on the neck or higher nearer the socket there is a greater risk of this happening than if it's lower like mine was. I have a follow up in 6 months time to see if I'm suffering from this but my consultant isn't concerned about it so I'm not.

As I said I'm 4 months post break, I'm back on my turbo and the road and my fitness is getting close to where I was before the break, I'm getting better every week. My limp is slight when I'm having an occasional bad day but nearly undetectable otherwise. I do get tired easily when out walking, my legs feel heavy most times but I hope that over time I will get back to where I was when walking was like 'floating on air'.

I hope the above is of some encouragement to you and that things will get better for you as I'm sure they will, just takes time and patience. There is a thread over on BikeRadar forums that may be of interest to you link why not grab a cuppa and have a read, lots of riders in our boat on BikeRadar.com