Poor you!

I totally empathize. To help control swelling (which seems pretty normal in such a sever case of injury), you can lay on the ground and put your legs in a chair or a bed above you. If you're really adventurous, you can put them up a wall. Try to wait 15-20 minutes, and then gently drop your feet to the side. Lay there for another 2-3 minutes in the fetus position. If you do this 2-3 times a day, you'll reverse the blood flow and perhaps reduce swelling. Ice packs help, too.

GOOD LUCK!

I Too broke my left femur in a 4 wheeler accident. It was a year ago April. I have returned to all of my previous activities. Actually, tonight I was playing softball with a 10 year old and he couldn't keep up with me playing catch. I am a 55 year old female hairdresser. My break was a spiral and I spent 3 days in the hospital. 6 weeks at home in a wheel chair doing nothing more than my physical therapy at least 3-4 times a day. I really was determined not to be a gimp when I returned to work. Your recovery is up to you. Do what your Dr tells you and stretch your PT as hard as you can stand it. No pain no gain with in limits. You were stupid enough to be were you are. Now be smart and recover. I was at 25% body weight at 6 wks, and at 10 wks I was at 100% but I was using a cane when I was walking a lot. Just do what you can and push a little beyond your comfort zone. Good luck.

Sorry, I didn't answer your main questions. Sweeling is what is causing the redness. Elevate and drink plenty of fluids. You can't stretch out because you are not making yourself do your PT. Do you want to recover? You have to take responsibility for how you come out of this. There are excersise's that will help you fully extend and there are excersises that can help you get your heel right up to your butt. Trust me, I can do both. Here's a challenge for you. My Grandmother at age 98 broke her femur and 4 months later was up and walking with full range of motion. I was 54 when I broke my femur and now a year later, I ride my 4 wheeler 20 miles and I live in Alaska. Trust me, I am not riding on groomed trails. Buck up and feel the pull. Tomorrow, it won't hurt so then you push harder and feel the pull.

In 1996 I was in an auto accident the car rolled seven times and all five of us were ejected I got the worst of it, at the scene my heart was not beating. Luckily my friend knew what to do to save me. They then life-flighted me to Pittsburgh.I found out the next day when I awoke that I had broken my left hip, they put rods, plates, and screws inside. After 3 day's I was walking around and felt great(I was 1. Then a year later I was in another accident where the car I was in ran a stop sign and another car hit right where I was sitting. They had to use the jaws of life to get the car off of my shattered left knee and also had severe internal injuries to five organs(Liver,Lung,Kidney,Stomach,and Spleen). The doctor wanted to wait for internal injuries to heal before operating on knee, so he put my knee in traction for a week ( man did that HURT ). Unfortunatley after two days I developed Jaundice. I begged my doctor to do something as I was feeling worse every day. I eventually ( after nine day's in hospital) fired my doctor. As soon as the new doctor came in she looked at my chart then at me and after 5 minutes of that she ordered an emergency Lifeflight (not a fun helicopter ride, and was my second one) and shipped me to a much larger Loyola University hospital in Chicago. When I arrived that night they operated immediatly on my knee and did something for internal injuries( not sure what, not surgery). Two weeks later I was able to go home, this time recovery was much worse and physical therapy was grueling. After a year on the couch and working it out I was almost back to normal.By the way in both car accidents I was seated in the back behind the driver( of course I never ride in the back now). Then lucky me I got osteomylitis, which is a deadly bone infection. More commonly though limbs are amputated. I had to find a third doctor to do this surgery, I almost died trying to find someone to operate on me. Because two other doctors had already operated on me not anyone would even see me. Finally the doctor who did the first surgery ( Broken hip ) called a friend from med school and convinced him to see me. I had to drive three and a half hours sixteen times in a three month period to have three surgeries the first to remove the hardware, the second to gut the entire femur, and the third to place antibiotic filled beads made of cement inside my femur. The entire process was the most painful and scary thing I've ever dealt with, because by the time I found this doctor I had a golf-ball sized lump on the side of my leg, before surgery they lanced it ( cut it open ) and the sqeezed out very disgusting puss, alot of puss. So anyway after the third surgery I had a port installed in my chest, eventually I had one on both sides of my chest for IV antibiotics, for a six-month period. At the same time my wounds from surgery on femur were healing and I was weaker than ever, I was layed up for almost two years before I was able to work again. By the way at this time I am only 20 years old. So after a couple years had gone by (2 or 3) I was feeling pretty good, but that was about the time that the pain started coming back, worse then ever. After three more years went by the pain was excruciating every day. If I was on my feet my knee hurt and if I was sitting or lying down my hip would hurt. At this time I started taking pain meds, I started out slow and over the last couple years I've changed dosage's and meds so many time's I forget how many. Then last year when I was thirty I was playing with my two boy's in the yard, just kicking around the soccer ball and I decided to show them a move I did when I was younger and on a soccer team. BIG mistake I immediatly fell and rolled my ankle, man did that hurt. So with help I got up and limped to the car, when I got home I decided it was probably just a sprain but my wife convinced my later that night to go to the Emergency room. Good thing I did because I broke My Tibia And Fibia (The bones on either side of the ankle). The bone on the outside of my ankle broke diagonaly about six inches and on the inside it was a small break straight across. All of my bone breaks were on my left side, So my hip, knee, and ankle on my left( every joint in my left leg) had recieved terrible trauma. For the ankle no surgery, even though I wish I would've gotten a second opinion, because now six months later the pain is worse than ever. I have had many x-ray's and MRI's over the past twelve years and I found out that from one or both of my accidents I now have a badly ruptured disc in my L5\S1 vertabrea and I also have two severely pinched nerves running down my back down to my leg one on each side, also I have really bad arthritis in my left elbow probably from getting flung from the car in the first accident, I cannot bend it all the way and it gives me trouble every night when sleeping. Oh and by the way sleeping is almost impossible, if I lay on my back my back hurts almost instantly and my hip soon joins in. I certainly cannot even for a second roll over on my left side, the pain is so great when I do that my body is trained to NEVER roll that way. If I lay on my right side my left elbow bothers me all-night, and on my stomach I am putting to much pressure on my left knee. So every night is a constant struggle to toss and turn until I am exhausted and pass out, usually not until two or three in the morning.(which drives my wife nuts.)And leaves me always tired. Working has also become almost impossible, I am only thirty but have recently applied for disability. The feeling you get from knowing that you can never again contribute to the family budget is devastating for me and just as stressfull on my wife. I recently switched pain doctors and he cut my meds by 80%, which is probably a good thing in the long run but my body was used to that amount so now I just feel miserable every day, so much so that lately I just want to lay on the couch. Not working and still can't do anything around the house. It is so frustrating, my poor wife is shouldering a load far to great for her and I feel helpless to stop it. I do push myself, I do physical therapy, I do take pain meds, I do have injections frequently but nothing seems to make much of a difference. I'm just not sure what the next step is, I'm only thirty doctors don't even want to talk about knee or hip replacement and I'm not to keen on the idea myself. My doctor say's back surgery is an option but he warn's that many people feel worse after the surgery, so why would I even chance it. I know that was alot of information to process but if anyone feel similar or has similar injuries I would appreciate a response, someone who knows what it's like would be nice. Obviously life is not always fair, but I'm not asking for fair, just reasonably less miserable. I can't even remember what it felt like twelve year s ago when I was not in pain all day every day. Will this ever get completely better? Well apparently not say my doctor's so I'm just reaching for better than this.

Adam

WOW! ADAM!
I often google up "broken femur" beacuse im currently 8 weeks in..on crutches, and i always come to this site to c if there are any updates...sorry to tell u, but i would always skip ur posting, because, well its pretty long! hehe, But today i gave it a read and man, i really REALLY feel so bad for you! Im a 19 year old dude and these last weeks have been the worst my whole ENTIRE life..i cant even imagine what your going through..I have a pretty bad femur frac from a car accident too. Wasnt driving neither- its a comminuted, rotated butterfly wedge-one of the bad ones..
Umm, i may be really young and not TOO religious but i feel like everything happens for a reason. I know that your 20years in the pain and no sight of end, but what can we do, you know?
I was on vacation in a 3rd world country visiting my mom and about a week or so before my flight back home, i told my mom that i had a feeling something would go wrong...now im not the superstitous type and i never go on these fortune telling sprees but for some reason i felt like something would go wrong, not like a broken bone, i thought i would get robbed or something..any way, two days before my flight, a bunch of my friends and i got together for a last day out with me..we went to a far away ranch and had a good time. drank a little and at about 6 in the evening we decided to leave because we had to go for a pool party/BBQ later on that night. The guy who drove me there offered to give me a ride back but seeing that he was as drunk as me, i refused. I am a really really cautious guy. i decided that i would go with a friend who doesnt really drink..turns out, we had an accident, and the other guy who had drank reached home safe..I just feel like, even though i took all the precautions and measures, against all odds, fate got me..and got me real bad..Now im stuck here not able to go home, cant go to school..although im finally leaving soon! Im the type of guy that is real athletic and loves to go out, party, get with girls..u know im 19!AND im realy good in school! but these last weeks have really got to me...godamn facebook doesnt help either, looking at pics of all my friends partying n stuff..lol..i just hope ill b well soon!
Since you were in more than 1 accident, can you spot me any advice?
hope u get better!!!!!

Hey,
Man what happened to you really sucks, it seems like you made the right decisions but like you said FATE got you anyway. I can tell you that about three or four months after my first break, I was feeling much better. In fact it was because I worked my ass off in physical therapy two or three times a week for those 3-4 months, it will suck, and the pain will be worse, I almost quit a couple of times.I did stick with it because for me, my goal was to play basketball again, you have to have a goal like that to keep yourself going(trust me I know). Whatever you do, make sure you do physical therapy and the stupid little exercises that they give you to do at home or that pain that you feel now will always be there. Anyway, enough preaching I think you should know that after this break, your world is not going to end, and you can get 99% better just like I did after the first one. Just try not to do it again, or the chances of you getting back to normal are slim. You might think that the chance's of that happening again are nil but it happened to me, so be careful about who drives you anywhere, anytime. I never let anyone drive me, but that's just me. So, keep me posted, let me know how physical therapy is going. If you want too. Good Luck. And don't worry, you'll be fine.

Hey Adam!
Its been a while! Thanks for the confidence! So i am finally back home, its been a month since ive been here. I just gave the doc here a visit, and th news wasnt tooo good. he says that theres slow healing and that i shouldnt put more than 50% weight on it. As for the physio, i feel like flexibility and muscle strength is no longer an issue..i really REALLY worked my ass off on those and am doing a lot better there. I just hope that i dont have to do any addtional surgery..hey do you know anything about these new bone stimulators out in the market? Also, hows th progress on your injuries? anything new??

Hey, how's it going, Pluto? Man I am so glad you got to come back home, I can't even imagine what it must have been like, having all that happen and with no friends or family to help you out.But you're home now, and that's what matter's. Glad to hear physical therapy went well, and sorry to hear that your bones are healing slow but that's just how it goes sometimes. I have never heard about a "Bone Stimulator", sounds like it might stimulate bone growth, but I don't know. If your Doctor thinks it a good idea, then I would consider it, you should do some research on it and find out what the side-effects might be before you try it. As far as me and my injuries, well in the second accident I had several internal injuries, and over the last couple years I have had lots of complications because of them, Like cellulitis, vasculitis, and pneumonia, all of which involved long hospital stay's but last week I went to the ER for severe stomach pains. Oh I was so pissed, I was in the waiting room for three hour before I even saw the triage nurse, then she took me right back and I waited two more hours on a bed in the hallway before seeing a doctor, they ran tests and found nothing then sent me home. But my doctor thinks it is some kind of Auto-Immune disease, whatever that is. Anyway my leg hurts, but no more than usual. I hope your up and around without much pain soon, be careful with whatever pain meds they got you on, they can be hard to get away from. Anyway hope all is well and good luck with final exams.