Broken Shoulder Heals Naturally: My Story

Just over two months ago I took a spill on my bicycle and broke my shoulder, or more specifically my humerus right below the ball at the shoulder. The doctor said it was like knocking a scoop of ice cream off an ice cream cone.

While ruining an ice cream cone is a painful experience, the recovery time certainly isn't as long as a broken shoulder, especially for a guy like me in his 50s. (A little web research has taught me that it takes a bit longer for the more, ahem, mature among us to heal from a broken bone.)

But this isn't about the pain and difficulty of recovering from a broken shoulder. What has impressed me these last months is the body's amazing ability to mend itself.

The morning of the accident I was first taken to a walk-in clinic where the nurse practitioner sent me to an x-ray lab. I had been hoping the shoulder was just dislocated. When I heard the x-ray technician say, "Uh-oh," I realized my problem was bigger.

They told me it was broken, relayed the information to the clinic that sent me there, and the clinic set up an appointment for me with a specialist near where I live.

Once I knew it was broken, frankly I was impressed by how little it hurt. I'm sure many reading this have suffered broken bones more painful than mine. But I was expecting worse. The only times the pain really set me off was the two or three times I sneezed; unfortunately it was a windy spring day and pollen was in the air!

Once I made it to the orthopedic clinic it was time for more x-rays. Striking the various poses wasn't too painful, except when they asked me to hold my arm out like a chicken wing. That wasn't going to happen. The poor arm basically dangled from my shoulder, but I could do some flexing and moving with my lower arm.

I was wondering what was in store for me. Surgery? An awkward cast? I was wrong on both accounts.

All I needed was one of those funny padded slings. And I could even get out of that to take a shower or change my shirt. Fortunately my bone had naturally realigned itself into the proper position so at this point, healing was up to my own body.

And what a great job it did. As I went to follow-up appointments, my doctor said everything was healing fine. About three weeks later when they made me pose for the chicken wing x-ray, I could do it. It even felt good stretching my shoulder out a little.

Now I'm in physical therapy. At first I could hardly get any range of motion with my broken shoulder. But by just keeping up with the stretching exercises, and never pushing myself to the point of pain, my range of motion has just about returned. The strength isn't there yet, but I can feel it beginning to improve.

So how well does the body heal itself? For my snapped bone I just had to give it time to do its thing and then slowly begin to use it again.