Hi, my name is Alex, I'm a 19 year old,
and I broke both my tibia and fibula a
little more than a month ago (on the 20th
of May). I've had surgery within the
first days, where the doctor inserted a
plate with 9 screws into my leg.
The fracture itself is of the spiral type:
I fell and twisted my leg underneath me.
The damage is starts about 2-3 inches
above my ankle, and spins for a little
more than another inch.
Now, this break happened a month ago, like
I said. I've had my first month's
control, and I took pictures of the
x-rays, because I personally don't like
how they look. After doing multiple
comparisons and extrapolations using other
tibia pictures that I've found on the
internet, and through touching my own leg
(I have the removable Aircast), I've
realized that the tibia isn't healing in
the same position as it used to be. The
plate that's been inserted is holding it
in a disformed position, so I'm afraid it
won't heal right. I will post pictures of
the x-rays and the photochops I've done to
determine just how crooked the leg is at
the moment.
Here are the base x-rays.
As you can see, the break is pretty bad,
and it does not look any better than a
month ago when I first got the
post-operation x-rays. I don't want to
question my doctor's work or anything, but
the alignment does not look good to me.
After analyzing a bit more the pictures, I
came to the conclusion that if I do any
walking with the bones "healed" in this
position, I'm going to use up my joints
and destroy the cartilages, because of
imperfect seating. This can be seen in
the first picture, where the talocrural
joint seams to be badly compressed on one
side, making the wear uneven on top of the
ankle. Also, in the 2nd and 4th x-rays
(lateral views), the tibia's point of
contact does not seem correct with the
ankle (if you look carefully, the anterior
end seems to dip lower towards the talus
than the rear part).
Still looking at the lateral views, if you
extrapolate the direction of each end of
the tibia, the parts would not meet
correctly. Hence, I have a presumption
that the tibia after healing, will not be
able to withstand as much weight as
normal, and could easily break again in
case of a hard fall or heavy compression.
Here's a few photoshopped versions of
those most visible x-rays, with
extrapolation of good bones added on top
of the original pictures:
Here you can see how the lower tibia is
misaligned compared to a real bone. This
brings me to believe that the talocrural
joint will be subject to uneven wear,
causing early arthritis in my foot and
ankle.
This lateral view where the bone ends
lead, if extrapolating a complete bone.
This is scaring me since the compression
force coming from the knee will not be
directed correctly towards the foot, but
rather will be localized at the area of
fracture, creating a weak point that will
limit activities forever.
What I am asking here is whether my
analysis is correct, that is, if the
healing process continues on this route, I
will suffer from defective ankle joints
and a loss of weight-bearing capacity
compared to my other leg, or if I am
simply overanalyzing this situation. My
take is that this alignment is not
sufficient to provide a total recovery,
and that I will suffer from the
consequences for the rest of my life.
I have thought of a remedy to my problem,
which would be the removal of the plate,
and the installation of wires circling the
bone and holding it together. As can be
seen by the x-rays, there doesn't seem to
be any small fragments of bone in the
surrounding areas, leading to believe the
fracture was clean and swift. Hence, both
sides of the tibia should come back
together in the original way. What do you
think of this?
