How Broken Bones Heal
Ouch! When a bone breaks, the first thing you feel, maybe the only thing you feel, is pain. But that pain isn’t because your body has a bone to pick with you; rather, it is the first signal of the intense and incredible physiological journey towards healing a broken bone.
Whether you’ve broken multiple bones or you’ve never so much as sprained a pinkie, you may have found yourself wondering about broken bones. So how long does a broken arm take to heal? And what can you do to make a broken bone heal faster? Let’s take a look at the process of bone healing and what, if anything, you can do to speed up the process.
The Steps of Bone Healing
While there are hundreds of processes that occur while a bone heals, experts divide the steps of bone healing into three separate parts.
Inflammatory Phase (1-2 Weeks)
The inflammatory phase of bone healing begins immediately. The pain you feel will start immediately as well, and serves as a vital sign to your body that something is wrong. Imagine if a bridge collapsed. The inflammatory phase is when first responders show up to help support the area as well as remove the rubble.
Part of the goal of this phase is to immobilize the injured area. The other goal of this phase is to flood the injured area with healing factors and mediators.
Your body creates a “fracture hematoma,” also known as a collection of blood. The sudden swelling makes it difficult to move the injured bone while also supplying it with white blood cells like neutrophils, macrophages and lymphocytes, as well as nutrients to support the upcoming healing journey.
Repair Phase (2-6 Weeks)
Once the area is properly supplied with healing factors, the repair begins. First, the fracture (i.e. the gap between the bone) is filled in. Initially, the gap is filled with a flexible connective tissue called cartilaginous tissue, the same tissue that makes up the tip of your nose and your earlobes. But soon after, the tissue turns into bone.
The cartilaginous tissue formation is known as soft callus formation and the transformation into bone is known as hard callus formation. The calluses formed during bone repair don’t just yet take the shape of your bone as it was before the break. In fact, the calluses extend beyond typical bone areas. Continuing our bridge collapse metaphor, the repair of your bones would be similar to repairing the bridge and your bone during this phase looks similar to how a bridge might look with its scaffolding during this period.
Remodeling Phase (Several Months to a Year)
Once the fracture has been filled in, specialized cells reconstruct the area to mirror how the bone looked before the break. During this process, the bone that was placed into the fracture is strengthened as well. This would be the part of bridge repair where it is getting ready to be reopened, sanding down the cinder blocks and making sure it looks like the blueprints.
So how long does a broken arm take to heal? It depends! Factors such as the severity of fracture, the location of the fracture, your health, your genetics, your age, etc. all impact the duration of your broken bone repair. For example, a smaller arm break could take as little as 6 weeks to heal in a cast, but it could take up to two years for full strength to be restored.
Tips for Speeding Up Broken Bone Recovery
Recovery varies from individual to individual, so you should always adhere to your physician’s guidance. However, there are some general tips that you could implement if they are right for you and your body to support bone healing.
Eat a Healing Diet
While a healthy diet is helpful for everyday living, it can be especially important while your body tries to heal a broken bone. The repair process is incredibly energy-intensive and requires a lot of material. Eating a protein-rich diet with ample supplies of minerals such as calcium can help ease the recovery process.
Wear a Cast or Splint
It may seem obvious but casts and splints help keep the broken pieces of a bone aligned properly. Immobilizing the area encourages the body to not just heal faster than it would without a cast or splint but also to heal better. Without a cast or splint, a bone may heal improperly and/or out of alignment, which can impact mobility and function, cause pain, or keep the bone from healing at all.
Exercise
Research has shown that exercise can increase the recovery speed and help with pain management during this time. Of course, it is vital to follow the medical advice of your physician. But even in cases where a doctor might allow or even encourage exercise and activity, traditional casts severely limit function, by being heavy or bulky, and not allowing for sweat. That’s not a concern with ActivArmor, a waterproof 3D printed and FDA-listed cast that is low profile and custom-designed to each patient’s injury, to maximize function while still accurately immobilizing the area necessary, allowing for a far more active lifestyle than traditional fiberglass casts.
The Benefit of ActivArmor
Compared to traditional casts, ActivArmor has numerous benefits:
Waterproof
Custom fitted
Adjustable
Reusable
Light-weight
Hygienic
Itch-free
When it comes to ActivArmor, doctors love the patients’ outcomes and patients love the lifestyle freedoms during recovery. To learn more, or if you find yourself needing to know more about “how long it takes a broken bone to heal,” find an ActivArmor provider near you.
