Can a broken wrist cause permanent damage?

Complications of a broken wrist are rare, but they might include: Ongoing stiffness, aching or disability. Stiffness, pain or aching in the affected area generally goes away eventually after your cast is removed or after surgery. However, some people have permanent stiffness or pain.

What are the long-term effects of a broken wrist?

Long-term complications of a broken wrist

However, long-term complications are possible, including: Nerve and blood vessel damage. You can injure the nerves and blood vessels around your wrist when it breaks. This can lead to numbness and circulation problems.

Can a broken wrist cause nerve damage?

Injury to the nerves can occur when the hand, wrist, or finger is broken, crushed, overstretched, cut, or burned. It is the major cause of nerve damage to the hand and wrist.

What happens if you break your wrist and don't get it fixed?

Delayed Union. When a bone fracture is untreated, it can result in either a nonunion or a delayed union. In the former case, the bone doesn't heal at all, which means that it will remain broken. As a result, swelling, tenderness, and pain will continue to worsen over time.

How long for a broken wrist to get back to normal?

In most cases it takes around 6 to 8 weeks to recover from a broken arm or wrist. It can take longer if your arm or wrist was severely damaged. You will need to wear your plaster cast until the broken bone heals.

Learning About a Broken Wrist and Understanding the Recovery

Why does my wrist hurt years after breaking it?

Fractures that extend into a joint can cause arthritis years later. If your wrist starts to hurt or swell long after a break, see your doctor for an evaluation. Nerve or blood vessel damage. Trauma to the wrist can injure adjacent nerves and blood vessels.

Can a cast cause nerve damage?

When the pressure inside the cast builds up, it can cause damage to the muscles, nerves or blood vessels in the area covered by the cast. The damage may be permanent if it is not discovered and treated promptly.

Can an old fracture cause pain years later?

Chronic Pain – After Healing Is Complete

However, some people may continue to experience pain long after the fracture and soft tissues have healed. Full healing from a fracture can take anywhere from several weeks to several months and occasionally even several years.

Do all broken wrists need surgery?

In the majority of cases, surgery isn't necessary for wrist fractures. Your doctor may be able to reset the fracture, put a splint and then a cast on your wrist, and wait for the bones to heal. Regular X-rays will be performed to make sure your wrist is healing as it should.

Will a non union fracture ever heal?

A nonunion is a broken bone that has not healed. Most fractures—broken bones—will heal effectively with standard treatment in about 6 to 12 weeks. Between 5 and 10 percent, however, may fail to heal completely.

What are the signs of nerve damage in your wrist?

What does nerve damage feel like in wrist?

Damage to the nerves that control motor function can cause weakness, twitching and paralysis in the hand, wrist and arm. Sensory nerve damage symptoms include pain, numbness, tingling, increased sensitivity, burning and problems positioning the hand correctly.

What are the signs of nerve damage?

How long does stiffness last after broken wrist?

Almost all patients will have some stiffness in the wrist, which will generally diminish in the month or two after the cast is taken off or after surgery, and will continue to improve for at least two years. You should expect your recovery to take at least a year.

What happens after cast is removed from broken wrist?

It usually takes four to six weeks for new bone to form to heal your fracture. When the cast is removed most people find that their wrist is stiff, weak and uncomfortable to start with. It may also be prone to swelling and the skin dry or flaky, this is quite normal.

What happens if a scaphoid fracture is left untreated?

If a Scaphoid fracture does not heal, it is called a Scaphoid Fracture Non-union. If left untreated, the part of the Scaphoid that interacts with the Radius may die, which can lead to painful arthritis in the wrist, developing months to years after the initial injury.

Is wrist surgery risky?

Risks of this wrist surgery can include but are not limited to: Infection. Damage to nerves, tendons or cartilage. Stiffness or loss of joint motion.

Is wrist surgery painful?

You will generally have no pain, and the numbing medication usually lasts about 8 or more hours, so you will leave the surgery center with no pain.

How many hours does wrist surgery take?

This typically takes between 12-36 hours. You will not feel pain and you will receive medicine that will make you forget the majority of the surgical procedure. Combined General and Regional Anesthesia: For longer more extensive cases (more than 1 hour) general and regional anesthesia are often used together.

Can you get arthritis from a broken wrist?

Posttraumatic arthritis can develop after an injury, such as a broken wrist bone or a torn ligament. This trauma can cause a direct injury to the cartilage or a delayed wearing of the cartilage due to a change in the way the bones move together—such as after a ligament tear.

Can old fractures be seen on xray?

Some of these missed diagnoses are followed by excellent functional recovery, and later only radiographic deformities can be found as positive evidence of an old healed fracture.

Can a healed fracture still hurt?

When you suffer a fracture, it will eventually heal and recover to the point that you no longer experience pain. When pain continues beyond the sub-acute phase, it is called chronic pain. Many people never get to this phase, but for those who do, the pain continues for long after the injury is healed.

What happens if you leave a cast on for years?

Prolonged cast immobilization is extremely rare and occurs in non compliant patients. This case demonstrates muscle atrophy which was anticipated. The stiffness of the ankle joint was not marked. Skin changes were minor with no substantial areas of ulceration or stasis dermatitis.

How do you test for nerve damage?

A nerve conduction velocity (NCV) test — also called a nerve conduction study (NCS) — measures how fast an electrical impulse moves through your nerve. NCV can identify nerve damage. During the test, your nerve is stimulated, usually with electrode patches attached to your skin.