How to tell if you’ve broken a bone

Bone breaks – some are very obvious while others are very hard to tell. If your skin was pierced by a fractured bone sticking out, you can safely say you broke a bone.  But sometimes a fracture or bone break is questionable. The most common causes of broken bones are traumatic injuries from sporting injuries, vehicle accidents and falls.  In any of these events, there may sometimes be no visible sign of a broken bone.

That is why to definitively determine if you’ve broken a bone, an x-ray will be necessary. This will be the best way to ‘see’ through the layers of your skin, muscle, and fat and a possible broken bone. Do not rely on whether you can still walk or use the body part in question as some fractures may still support body weight or have movement.

Signs of a broken bone

Many of us may rely on our pain level after a fall to provide a picture of whether we have a fractured bone. The presence of pain can certainly be an indicator but there are several other factors to consider that may indicate you have broken a bone:

·      Bruising – Whenever your body is hit hard enough by something or from a fall, very likely you will experience bruising.  Discoloration from bruising is when blood has escaped from the capillaries in the area indicating damaged tissue underneath. Bruising can happen with almost any kind of trauma or tissue damage, including blood leaking from a broken bone. The bigger the area of bruising, the more likely the damage is deep such as with a bone break.

·      Swelling – After the trauma, noticeable swelling can be a sign you may have fractured a bone. When you injure yourself, the area involved can cause fluids and sometimes blood to leak into soft tissues, like muscle, fat and skin. All that extra fluid causes the soft tissues to swell – sort of like a dry sponge that swells when water is added to it – and become taut or hard. Swelling can happen from medical conditions without trauma as well. However, it is only happens after an injury, it is probably related.

·      Deformity – The single biggest indicator of a fracture is sign of a deformity.  If an arm or leg is bending in places it’s not supposed to, the chance of it due to a broken bone is very high.  The same is certainly true if a bone is protruding through the skin.

·      Crepitus – This is when a person can feel two bits of bone that have been broken rubbing against each other.  This grating may be similar to the sensation you get when walking on gravel.

·      Pain – With many injuries if the area is moved or pressure is applied, pain gets worse. With a break, this is amplified and in many cases the person will experience severe pain.  Also the pain will occur directly on the bone when touched.  Pain only in the muscle is rarely a sign of a break in a bone.

·      Reduced function or loss of function – When bones break, the basic supportive structure of your body has been compromised.  This means that you may lose the ability to move the limb but also to bear weight on a leg or arm.

Getting medical help

Never attempt to self-diagnose a suspected bone fracture.  If you do suspect a bone fracture, whether of yourself of someone else, keep the person still and do move them unless there is an immediate danger.  If there is bleeding involved, stop the bleeding by pressing firmly on the site with a clean dressing.  If a bone is protruding, apply pressure around the edges of the wound and never attempt to try to straighten broken bones.

 Any condition that appears to indicate a possible bone break will need to be evaluated by a medical professional.  X-rays will need to be conducted and a thorough assessment of the severity of the break to determine the best course of treatment for the bone involved.  Sometimes CT or MRI scans may also be used to evaluate the break.  

Treating broken bones

Broken bones generally heal by themselves with the aim of medical treatment to make sure the pieces of bones are lined up correctly.  The bone will need time – weeks or months – to fully recover in strength, movement and sensitivity.

Depending on where the fracture is and how severe, treatment may include:

·      Splints to stop movement of the broken limb

·      Braces to support the bone

·      Plaster cast to provide support and immobilize the bone

·      Traction

·      Surgically inserted metal rods or plates to hold the bone pieces together

·      Pain relief