Question re fractures

So DD1 (she is 10) fractured her wrist approximately 5 weeks ago. She was seen at the local hospitals ED dept and it was cast. The cast was due to come off last weekend. We removed it.

The attending doctor (who she saw twice over 10 days) said that because of the type of fracture it was it would heal quickly and with no ongoing issues. He told us to remove the cast after a month and if there were any problems go back to Gp or the hospital.

So we followed instructions, including waiting a few extra days, and removed it over the weekend. Since then she has had ongoing soreness. DH says that its because the muscles etc haven't had much movement for 5 weeks so the soreness will wear off. I am not so sure.

It has now been nearly a week and she still says its sore - on a scale of 1-10, around a 4. But DD is a bit of a hypochondriac so I am really not sure how sore it actually is - does that make sense?

Would you follow it up with another appt? Or maybe wait another few days?

Cheers

I would follow it up. Sometimes the fracture can be bigger than originally seen on xray, it only becomes more visible once the bone starts regrowing. Also, if it is a muscular thing, they may have some physio resources, stretches or whatever that will help it.

Yeah definitely follow it up.

Thanks Marydean. Thats my inclination too but DH simply thinks DD is being a worrywart!

And it may be that DD is worrying about it - often kids are anxious about any pain because they don't have the lived experience to know whether it's serious or not. If you get it checked then you have some objective evidence. FWIW my DD have fractured her wrist a couple of times and she was relatively painfree after the cast came off.

I'd follow it up too. We just had a bad break and cast/ removal here. It was on my 2yo, but they are brutally honest and she is quite articulate. She did complain for a few days that is was sore after removal, but only a few. Not nearly a week. Once she was using it again it quickly got stronger.
She might be anxious, but better checked than not IMO.

I would get it checked, my now 11 year old fractured her arm when she was 9, it wasn't a bad fracture and they cast it said come back in 5 weeks to get it checked and the cast most likely will come off then, long story short they sprayed it before deciding to take cast off, which was lucky as it wasn't healed enough so 3 more weeks went by then another X-ray and finally cast could come off. Not everyone heals in 5 weeks.

Hi everyone. Thanks for the advice.

We went to GP after school who referred us straight back to the ER of our local hospital where we had the original fracture cast. She has now been recast and is seeing the fracture clinic in a couple of weeks time.

Her original fracture was in a really awkward place and hard to spot and after re-xraying it last night they said that even though they couldn't see a fracture again, the fact that it was so sore and she had fallen on it during the week (forgot about that in my original post!) they wanted to recast to be 100% sure.

I am more then ok with this as at her age I would rather it heal properly, so the cast can stay on as long as they like! DD is happy as it means she doesn't have to compete in her athletics carnival (she is a shocking runner:lol) and DS promptly asked if he could have one too to get out of the carnival!