How to speed up bone healing after a fracture?

When it comes time to heal a broken bone, our body usually knows what to do.
But in some cases, fractures heal very slowly or show no signs of healing at all for a period of time. However, the process of bone healing after a fracture can be accelerated by following certain recommendations. The healing process of a broken bone

Before moving on to the recommendations, let's look at the process of repairing a broken bone.

Stage 1: inflammation

When a bone breaks, the body sends white blood cells to the fracture site to remove foreign substances from the fracture from the blood. This causes inflammation, which stimulates the growth of new blood cells and is the first stage of recovery.

Stage 2: soft callus

The next step is for your body to create a callus around the fracture to cement the broken bone. This callus is just fibrous tissue and gets rougher over time.

Stage 3: hard callus

Gradually, the body replaces the soft callus with a hard callus that connects the bone fragments more firmly. This hard callus, which creates a lump at the fracture site, can be seen on x-rays several weeks after the fracture.

Stage 4: remodeling

The final stage of the bone repair process is remodeling, where the body replaces the callus with new, more compact bone. Remodeling makes bones stronger and improves blood circulation in bone tissue.

When a bone is fractured, doctors take certain actions aimed at achieving proper and rapid restoration of damaged tissue:

Setting the bone in the correct position and immobilizing the fracture. If necessary, the doctor will move the displaced bone segments back into place, after which the bone will be immobilized using a cast or brace.
Operation . In some cases, patients need surgery to replace bone fragments and stabilize the fracture, a process that may use metal plates, screws or nails. If the fracture does not show signs of healing, additional pressure is necessary. Sometimes doctors choose to do additional surgery. With the advent of the Exogen device, reoperation has an alternative that can accelerate bone healing even with non-union fractures.
Stimulating bone growth. To help the fracture heal, you can use the Exogen device, the only stimulator that uses ultrasound waves to stimulate the body's natural healing processes, activating bone growth.
To speed up metabolism and, accordingly, restore injured tissues, physiotherapeutic devices can be used. For example, a fracture is an indication for the use of MILTA or RIKTA laser therapy devices.
Rehabilitation after a fracture. A fracture involves long-term fixation of the bone in order to allow the tissues to heal properly. A negative effect of prolonged immobilization may be loss of joint mobility, in other words, the occurrence of contracture. One of the reasons is that injured tissues are restored in a fixed position, which subsequently does not allow the joint to fully bend.

Doctors recommend actively developing the joint after removing the plaster or fixing orthosis using special exercises or mechanical therapy devices Artromot or Kinetek, which independently bend the joint and gradually stretch the soft tissue. If the joint has been in a fixed position for a long time (more than 1-2 months), mechanotherapy is supplemented with manual or hardware techniques aimed at increased flexion of the joint, accompanied by microtears of tissue. In the future, it is important that tissues that have undergone micro-tears are restored through movement.

In addition to developing joint mobility, it is important to restore muscle tone using special exercises or myostimulation.

Find out more about exercises for rehabilitation after knee injuries and operations on the knee and knee joint, as well as about exercises for rehabilitation after shoulder injuries and operations on the shoulder and shoulder joint

Medical targets

The prescription of each drug must be strictly regulated by the indications for its use, the rationality of use in each specific case, minimizing side effects from various pharmaceutical combinations, and so on.

Therefore, before considering vitamins and preparations for healing bones during fractures, let’s determine why they are prescribed:

Pain relief is an important mental aspect, facilitating everyday manipulations and, oddly enough, making treatment more effective;
Correction of calcium metabolism - insufficient quantities, as well as excess, of beneficial microelements have an adverse effect on the therapeutic process, therefore the use of special calcium-containing preparations and bringing all indicators to a physiological state is indicated from a medical point of view;
Stimulation of the regeneration of bone and cartilage tissue is a key point in fracture traumatology, mobilizing the body’s own protective mechanisms and endogenous resources to repair the body, it is thanks to it that the arms and legs gain integrity much faster;
Regulation of the mineral composition of bones is the final stage, when new, recently fused elements are saturated with structural components, that is, active prevention of future traumatic injuries is carried out.

Unanimous panacea?

It is absolutely impossible to achieve rapid fusion of bones without the use of vitamins and calcium supplements, but in this matter you should not grab the first position you come across on the pharmacy shelf. Even without paying attention to the price, there are some parameters, such as bioavailability, that regulate the effectiveness of their use.

Today, it is actively recommended to use Calcimax tablets if it is necessary to replenish the loss of the main chemical elements of bones - calcium, primarily magnesium and vitamin D. This combination of active ingredients makes it possible to achieve normalization of calcium levels inside the bones and in other physiological environments of the body in a short period of time after a fracture .

The pharmacokinetics of the cooperation of microelements and vitamins in the drug makes it possible to register initial radiological signs of fusion just a week after using the first tablet.

Copper nickels for pain

“...After the fracture, the pain in my arm did not go away for a long time: the bones ached, especially in the evenings and before bad weather. I remembered a folk recipe for treating with copper. I found old copper coins at home, washed them and bandaged them on my injured hand. It was like this for three days and the pain began to subside.”

In folk medicine for the treatment of fractures, copper is used as an analgesic and an activator of mineral metabolism.

It is known that copper is actively involved in metabolism, hematopoiesis, and promotes the absorption of vitamin C.

When copper is applied externally, its ions enter the body through the skin. The most powerful healing effect is observed after a few days, when the metal, upon contact with the skin, oxidizes and darkens, the skin underneath turns greenish.

Not all copper is suitable for treatment. If these are Soviet coins, then they must be issued before 1961, made of MB grade copper. Copper grades such as “MOO”, “MOB”, “MG” are also recommended for treatment.

For therapy, you can use special copper plates, bracelets, and rings. As a rule, they are worn or tied for 3-5 days, then removed and the skin is cleaned. After 3 days, the procedure is repeated. To eliminate pain, swelling and strengthen bones after fractures, it is recommended to conduct at least 10 sessions of copper applications.

! Contraindications are skin diseases and allergies to copper.

Fracture healing method

“...I would like to talk about the treatment of fractures according to Dr. Sumarokov’s scheme. If it weren’t for the injury, I would never have believed that at my age—and I’m 74 years old—bones could heal so quickly. As they say, there would be no happiness, but misfortune helped... In winter, I fell from a slippery porch, the result was a complex fracture of the tibia. The surgeon applied a cast, but warned that surgery might be required if something went wrong.
A friend brought a magazine with an article that described a fracture healing scheme recommended by Dr. Sumarokov. This is how my treatment using this method went. The first week after the fracture, I ate a lot of raw carrots: I ate a salad made from it and washed it down with juice. Then for 10 days I relied on fish and seafood, and at the next stage (another 10 days) - on jellied meat, buckwheat porridge, citrus fruits, rosehip infusion, fruit jelly.
And then - the final cycle: until the plaster was removed, I took ground eggshells with lemon juice. Even before the cast was removed, an x-ray showed that healing was proceeding normally.
So no surgery was required, the plaster was removed, and the rehabilitation period went well. Thanks to Dr. Sumarokov and his method!”

Vitamins for fracture

Method of healing fractures, Doctor of Biological Sciences D.D. Sumarokova is popular among our readers, so let’s take a closer look at it. The researcher divides the healing period into several stages. The duration of each depends on age: up to 40 years - 3-5 days, from 40 to 60 years - 5-7 days, 60 years and older - 7-10 days.

✅ Stage 1 . Within a few days, the bone wound is cleared. The body removes dead and damaged cells: polymers break down into certain fragments that perform signaling functions.

If you interfere with the cleansing process and start encouraging the body to synthesize new cells by taking special medications, the signal intensity will be weak and the healing process of the lesion will slow down.

Nutrition for injuries

As Dr. Sumarokov writes: “There are few cells in the bone that can respond to a signal. It is necessary that new ones be formed quickly, and with certain properties. The body has special regulatory molecules, but we have not yet learned how to control their synthesis and release.”

Therefore, the author offers sand to the body with the help of retinol: “You need to give the patient a lot of vitamin A, but not a ready-made drug, but its predecessor - beta-carotene, so that our smart body itself creates the amount of retinol it needs.” So at the first stage it is recommended to drink carrot juice. The doctor suggests drinking it in descending order: 1st day - 3-4 glasses, 2nd - 2-3 glasses, 3rd - 1-2 glasses, 4th and further - a glass.

✅ Stage 2 is the beginning of the process of formation of new bone tissue. Vitamin D is responsible for this. According to Dr. Sumarokov, it can be obtained both from sea fish and by taking pharmaceutical medications.

✅ At the 3rd stage, there is an active formation of new bone tissue, which requires building material. Sumarokov recommends eating pork jellied meat every day. It can be partially replaced with jelly and jellied fish. At the same time, you need to take vitamin C and iron: you can take pharmaceutical medications or choose a diet. As sources of ascorbic acid, Sumarokov advises using rosehip infusion, citrus fruits, Japanese quince, and to obtain iron, include buckwheat porridge and apples in the diet - an excellent source of iron, according to Sumarokov, is the so-called apple hedgehog.

Malunion of bone

APPLE HEDGEHOG is an old Russian way of raising hemoglobin levels in the blood. You need to stick 4 nails into the apple and leave it for 12 hours, then remove the nails and eat the apple immediately. Of course, the nails must be washed first, and it is best to boil them. It is recommended to choose green varieties of apples.

✅ Stage 4 is characterized by the deposition of mineral components of bone onto the formed base. The body requires calcium and phosphorus - approximately in a ratio of 2:1. As Dost Sumarokov writes, “phosphorus is absorbed and transported easily, but calcium absorption requires active vitamin D. In addition, calcium enters the bone in the form of calcium citrate. There is usually no shortage of it, but just in case, a lemon won't hurt. A good source of calcium is eggshells.”

What to do if a fracture occurs? Timely treatment

The main symptom is pain, joint

it bends unnaturally. You can get injured anywhere. This will be a workplace, for example, at a construction site, where you fell unsuccessfully and stumbled upon bricks, or on vacation, when, while riding a bicycle, you crashed into a tree. Knowing that a fracture can be life-threatening, a person immediately consults a doctor. It’s better to hear that you just have a bruise than to get bone suppuration and amputation of a limb.

What is the danger of fractures?

Let us highlight a number of consequences when the integrity of the bone is violated:

The movement of the injured limb is impaired, which will have consequences without treatment.
Damage to blood vessels, which leads to blood loss and hematoma formation.
If several fractures are sustained at once, traumatic shock is possible, often leading to death.
The broken bone digs into the fat deposit, which leads to an embolism, which ends with the person becoming, at best, disabled, and at worst, dying.
If the fracture is not treated, it will lead to suppuration of the bone, which will cause the development of sepsis, and subsequently gangrene, leading, at best, to amputation, at worst, to death.

The body is designed in such a way that it is usually difficult to make a mistake when there is a fracture. The injury is associated with severe pain, as the broken bone continues to move, tearing blood vessels and muscle tissue with its sharp end. Only pain is not always a 100% sign of a fracture. Perhaps it’s just a bruise, but with a low pain threshold, it seems that the bone has shattered. Also, damage to soft tissue can cause more pain than a fracture.

How do you know if you have a fracture?

Two types of signs can be distinguished:

Relative, since symptoms do not always indicate possible bone damage;
Absolute – indicating a violation of the integrity of bone tissue.

Let's pay attention to the second type of symptoms in order to accurately diagnose ourselves:

The limb is unnaturally twisted. Even without an x-ray, anyone can determine that there is bone damage. Although a simple dislocation is possible. But still, you will have to urgently go to the doctor.
The bend of the limb is unnatural, for example, in the other direction.
Bones crunch – we are talking about crepitus. You should not deliberately twist the injured limb, as this is very painful. But if a person, sitting on a gurney, hears a crunch, then this is definitely a broken leg. Crepitation is felt.
With an open fracture, bone fragments are clearly visible. In addition, the skin is damaged, and severe bleeding is possible if an artery is damaged.

Now let's talk about the relativity of symptoms:

The bruised area hurts, especially severely if you try to move the limb.
The appearance of edema - at the site of the fracture, the arm or leg becomes especially swollen.
When a blood vessel ruptures with a broken bone, a hematoma forms.
Mobility is severely impaired. It’s difficult to stand on your leg, or you can’t hold anything in your hand.

Absolute symptoms are observed only when the injury is severe. Usually people are faced with relative signs, when it is difficult to diagnose themselves. Therefore, after a fall and if you experience pain, you should go to the emergency room, where there is an x-ray.

Type of fractures

The classification is broad. It has to do with how the bone damage occurred. First you need to understand how this damage was caused:

As a result of injury, that is, it is influenced by external factors.
Due to pathology, when the bone is affected inside the body. It could be tuberculosis of the bone, cancer, or something else that destroys bone tissue, making it less strong.

Integrity violations are also classified according to severity:

With or without displacement, the bone breaks completely;
Just a crack or break - the bone does not break into pieces.

By the way the skin behaves, integrity violations can be classified. Depending on whether you have a closed or open injury, you will need to proceed differently. But in any case, you should consult a doctor.

In the first case, the skin is not damaged, there are no wounds at the site of the injury. In the second, the bone protrudes outward from the wound, a lot of blood flows, and you can get an infection.

Fractures are also classified according to the degree of complexity. Some are simple and some have complications. In the latter case, destroyed bone tissue leads to heavy bleeding, infection through an open wound, which causes sepsis and fat embolism. Internal organs can also be damaged if there is a fracture, for example, of the ribs.

How to behave if you have a fracture

It is necessary to follow several simple rules to avoid further destruction of bone tissue, as well as painful shock, which often leads to death:

If injured, do not put any weight on the injured limb.
In case of an open fracture, bandage the wounded area using a sterile bandage.
If an arm or leg moves unnaturally, you need to apply a splint. A stick, board, ski, plastic panel, in general, long, flat objects that are at hand are suitable for this. The main thing is that the limb does not move, thereby destroying blood vessels and muscle tissue, which can lead to shock and then even death.
You should visit the hospital immediately after a fall. Even if the reasons for the fracture are not obvious. The sooner a specialist helps you, the easier and better it will be for your limb.
It happens that the doctor diagnoses it as a bruise. But if you have severe pain for three days, when no ointment or lotions help, you should visit a specialist again. Perhaps the picture was taken poorly and the fracture went unnoticed.

If, nevertheless, your bone integrity is compromised, you will be given a plaster cast.
After recovery, you will need to undergo rehabilitation. Author: K.M.N., Academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences M.A. Bobyr