Anyone who knows me personally or read my “about” page closely knows that in January 2009 I broke my leg in a skiing accident.  Me being me, a scientist and generally curious person, I have tried to find things to help me that the doctors might not necessarily tell you.  My doctor’s advice for the first 3 months was come back in 6 weeks and then after that, 8 weeks.  He also said I should do leg raises.  Pretty dull to be honest.  Here is a quick collection of things that might help.

1: Accept it

This might sound obvious but it is the most important thing I realized.  By thinking “what if I had done…” and other thoughts about avoiding the accident, I found that I wasn’t accepting the fact that I was going to be crippled for a fair amount of time but living in a state of denial.  I wasn’t going to be able to go out and socialize with my friends, I wasn’t going to be able to finish my ski season and I certainly wasn’t going to be able to play American Football the upcoming summer (it’s a summer sport in the UK).  Once I had accepted these things, it made it easier to make changes to make my life as tolerable as possible.

2: Leg Raises

I mentioned at the start that my doctor told me to do leg raises.  My physiotherapist had a different idea though.  A leg raise is an open chained exercise.  This means your leg is fixed to your torso but your foot still floats free.  This is bad if you have a broken leg.  I’m sure if you think about it you will see why.  Instead of this he suggested that I do crunches resting my heels on a swiss ball and light leg presses with the swiss ball against the wall.  Both of these are closed chain exercises where your foot is now fixed by the swiss ball.

I am not a physiotherapist and don’t pretend to be one.  These exercises have helped me but may be unsuitable for other injuries.  DO NOT ATTEMPT ANY EXERCISE WITHOUT CLEARING IT WITH A PROFESSIONAL FIRST.  If you do, don’t blame me if it all goes wrong.  I told you here not to!

3: Sleeping

I was told by everyone to elevate my leg.  This is good advice as far as I can see.  It definitely helped reduce my swelling.  I found one problem however and that was sleeping.  I spent a whole lot of time in bed when I first had my accident.  In hospital this is fine because the mattresses can be elevated but this is much harder at home, unless you are lucky enough to have a bed which bends.  Rather than piling up pillows under my feet and hoping they stayed there (they didn’t), I piled the pillows under my mattress, elevating my leg but not having to worry about keeping my feet on pillows or any bow in my leg.

Pillows worked best for me but anything that is big and close to the width of your bed will do.

4: Crutches

My hands blister if I have to do anything more than get up and go to the bathroom on crutches.  I found that the best cure for this was weight lifting gloves with leather palms but open fingers.  These are pretty cheap and well worth the investment.  These gloves by SK Sports Supplies are my favorites.  I also have some Gold’s Gym gloves but they are a bit small and still leave my hands blue after using them.  For less than £10 you can’t really go wrong here.

That’s been my experience with a broken leg.  There are loads of websites for support and information but these are some tricks that I have come up with over the last 5 months.  If I find something else, I will make sure to post them here so check back soon!

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