Round about that time I fractured my wrist, and experienced
this form of health care – I went to A&E, where I was X-rayed and given a
wrist support to help give it support in healing. At the end of the ?six weeks, I returned to
the hospital to the OT section, where they told me to do some very
uncomfortable exercises, bending my hand at the wrist in different
directions. These exercises somehow felt
inappropriate to me so I didn’t do them.
By a happy chance, I had met and been impressed by a chiropractor at a
conference on CAM, and ended up consulting him.
He reckoned that the scaphoid bone had got stuck, and over several
sessions unjammed it, with the result that my hand would flex another 45
degrees to the approximately 80-90 degrees that the other one did naturally.
So, in this case, I reflect that ‘natural’ in the sense of ‘not
doing anything’ was insufficient. I also
happened to chat to various people such as participants in my Japanese Yoga
class who said they’d fractured a wrist in the past, and it had set in the
wrong place, so they had ended up having an operation where it was re-broken
and set in the right place. I’m not sure
if they lost any mobility or sensation long-term as a result of this, but no
doubt it was painful going through the operation and post-operative healing
again.
Recently, I broke another bone! – I did at one point have a
check a few years ago for osteoporosis, since a herbalist colleague had
wondered if my bones might be getting brittle with my age. It was in fact low-ish, and perhaps I should
do more to build that bit up, I don’t know.
Again, it being the clavicle I was essentially given a sling and told to
go home and get better. There was in
fact talk of putting a pin in to the clavicle to ? hold it together. Consultation at the local fracture clinic
didn’t show up any further problem, though to my eyes the two ends of the
broken clavicle looked ‘miles apart’.
However, I was told they would seek each other out and all would be
well. My physio told me I would regain
full movement so I would be as good as pre fracture.
Imagine my concern when I returned for my discharge
appointment at 10 weeks to be told no re-join had occurred. There was talk of having the pin/plate
process at this stage – which would now include a bone graft, since the bone
doesn’t heal so well so long after injury.
Thankfully, I happened to consult a physio who suggested more of a wait
and see approach, and in that time I re-connected with an osteopath-trained
practitioner who seems to have readjusted the two ends of the clavicle back
into place – still not quite sure exactly what he did, but there was a definite
alarming clicky/crunch which seeme d to please him, and seemed to end up with
my clavicle in a much better place, and me able to move it much better.
So, what is my point?
My concern is that orthodox medicine is missing important possibilities
for facilitating healing in a more natural way with regard to fractures by
supporting healers who know what to do to (? in this case, certain osteopaths?
- ? traditional bonesetters? – as an aside, I think osteopathy did stem from an
American bone-setting tradition) to get fractured bones into place so they can
heal up most effectively. I know my
experience is over just a couple of breaks, but I was struck by the comments of
people I knew who had sustained wrist fractures, and when I googled about clavicle
fractures, there seems a lot of problems there too.
Anyone else any perceptions or thoughts?
References (still need a bit of working up)
Colquohoun, D (c2005)
Ernst, E (c2005)
Heller et al (2005) Perspectives in Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
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