Tibia Shaft Fractures

Background

The tibia is a very important bone because it holds most of the your body weight as a person. The tibia is also called the shin bone that is very dense because of the constant stress that it is put through. Due to this, the bone will be able to break in many different shapes and forms depending on how this fracture is caused.

Tibial Injuries

The tibia is composed of 3 locations, the proximal, middle and distal portion, now there are many different types of fractures that can occur on this bone. There is a transverse fracture which is a fracture that breaks in a horizontal line across the tibial shaft, the oblique fracture which has an angled line across the shaft, a spiral fracture that is caused by a twisting force and ends up looking like a candy cane, the comminuted fracture which can break into 3 pieces and the open fracture which is when the bone will break through the skin. These fractures vary depending on how you injure yourself, most of these fractures happen from when you are involved in a high speed impact, a collision from someone else, or a twisting force. Many symptoms include severe pain (almost immediate), inability to walk, a possible deformity in the leg, loss of feeling or sensation, or possibly the bone will be protruding from the skin.

Post-Op

For the first six weeks of this injury, the patient will not be able to walk, they will be placed in a cast and must use crutches for that time. During this time the patient will need to strengthen the quad muscles while in the cast. From weeks 6-8 the patient will be taken out of the cast to begin to walk while partial weight bearing. The patient will begin to strengthen his leg muscle extensively. From there the patient will begin to normalize their walking pattern as they are working back from the injury. In total the patient will take 6 months to fully recover from this injury before they are allowed to come back to performing their everyday tasks.