Broken big toe - why do I need to see an ortho doctor?

[amycurl]

My DD (aged 5 at the time) broke her right leg ice skating in Jan 2012; it was fairly late on a Friday night. She cried for about 30 minutes, there was no swelling, and we were able to get her to sleep. The next morning, however, she couldn't put weight on it, so we took her to urgent care right when they opened Saturday. There was still no swelling, and she wasn't complaining of any pain (except when she tried to put weight on it.)

The docs were surprised as we were when the x-rays came back with the break (nice and clean, too.) Luckily, the doc on duty was board certified in sports medicine, called the ortho doc on call at the hospital, and e-mailed him the x-rays. They both agreed that just splinting the leg would work until Alexa could get seen by one of the main ortho practices in town, which I think happened either that Monday or Tuesday. They are the ones that set the leg in a cast.

So, the timeline doesn't look unreasonable to me. And both my DD experience and my own when I broke my wrist about a decade ago seems to speak that it is standard practice to heavily splint the broken bone for 2-5 days before setting it in a cast.

Good luck! I can't imagine how much it must have hurt without the boot!

 

[PigsDad]

My experience is that it is SOP for doctors in emergency / urgent care facilities to not set broken bones. They simply stabilize the patient and splint if necessary, and then refer you to a specialist. That may be several days later, as others have indicated.

Kurt

 

[jlr10]

I broke a leg on Kauai 2 years ago, but thought I sprained my ankle. After a week of it not getting better I went the doctor on call in the Hilton. He took an xray and when he put it on the light board even I could tell just by looking that it was broken. He told me to see the ortho doctor to see if it needed to be pinned, which I did the next day. The ortho doctor said it didn't, but surprised (as was I) that the original doctor just put an ace bandage on my leg and gave me Vicadin. I guess he thought if I could walk on it for a week what was another day? I took 5 weeks in a hard cast and 5 weeks in a soft cast before the bone healed. I always wondered if it was due to week of walking on it without treatment that took it so long to heal.

By the way the ortho doctor said I was referred to see if it needed to be pinned as they were concerned that I might develop arthritis in the join later. But he said that since I was over 50 I would have developed it my now.

 

[SDKath]

Thanks for the info.

Who knew a toe thread could generate such interest?

I always wondered that about the darn gall bladder but there are surgeons and GI docs who spend their lives dealing with this completely useless sac of bile.