Ever broken a bone and NOT known it?

[Jockaroo]

I've been having some pain in my wrist for several months and decided to go to the doctor today. He did X-rays and informed me that I had broken my arm at some point in my life--it was an old, healed injury. I didn't know this and it is quite a shock. Both my parents worked in medical fields and neither realized this so I did not get any treatment. My parents were not neglectful or abusive and made multiple trips to orthopedic doctors for my knee issues.

Has anyone else ever found out they had a healed broken bone and NOT known they had a break? I can't remember ever having pain I would associate with a broken bone and have no idea when this could have happened.

 

[yeartolate]

I broke my right wrist (carrying a cord of wood I split over ice and splat). When I went in to get my cast off I told the orthopedist I was really happy because my left wrist was sore from over doing it. He took an xray and apparantly I had broken the lef wrist as well.

 

[rie'smom]

My son was hunting a few years ago and fell 25 ft flat on his back. There was no injury from the fall however,the scan showed a healed vertebral break .We figure it must have been an old high school football injury.

 

[luvtogo12]

I am, well, clumpsy as they come. I am always falling down stairs.
One time, I fell down and my right foot hurt pretty bad. Although it hurt, I really did not think much about it. Later in the day as I was driving and putting pressure on my right foot it really hurt so I had it checked out. Yep, it was broken and I had been walking on it most of the day. I even went to a Christening.

Fast foward a few months and again, I fall down the stairs. This time it was my left foot. The pain felt the same so I went to the ER to have it checked. The x-ray showed no break but the Dr. did ask me how long ago I broke my left foot. He said it was obviously broken once before but I have no clue when/where/how.

Just for the record, I am naturally clumpsy, I dont drink.

 

[OK!]

Yep, I broke my ankle falling down a flight of steps in my parents' basement my senior year of HS, went out dancing that night on it (it was a blind date and he was super cute, so really, I had no choice in the matter ); at the end of the night, my ankle was about the size of a grapefruit. Got it x-rayed the next day, was diagnosed with a sprain, and dealt with it. When it was still larger than normal and didn't bend properly 3 months later, I went back to the doctor. He x-rayed it again and told me then that it'd actually been broken originally, but it was undetected at the time.

 

[Virgo10]

Yeah. I broke my tailbone and I had a hairline fracture to one of my ribs. Both showed up when I had an MRI and I was like

 

[SleepyMom]

A few years ago I smashed my left shin into the open dishwasher door, there was a huge lump and it was very black and blue. I limped around for a few days and when I couldn't stand the pain anymore I finally went to have it x-rayed and was told it wasn't broken (then), but that it had a fracture before and healed on it's own.

I've never broken or hurt my leg that bad that I can remember, so I have no idea when it happened. My thought was that it was the current injury and somehow it looked healed already on the x-ray, because it was in the exact spot of the bruise. Who knows It never did heal perfectly and I still have pain from it.

 

[Jockaroo]

Thanks for sharing your stories. Now I don't feel like a freak quite so much. Apparently, a chip of the broken bone fused onto one of my wrist bones and is what now--years and years later--is causing my pain. I just can't imagine having a broken arm and not feeling some sort of intense pain, immobility, swelling or any symptoms. I was a little bit of a tom-boy as a kid and my mom wonders if my childhood episodes of jumping out of trees caused this.

 

[daisyduck123]

When I was 10 months old I rolled off the changing table (dad was watching me because mom was in the hospital having my baby sister). No one knew I'd fractured a rib until my next doctor's check-up. He could tell by looking at my ribs that I'd fractured a rib & it hadn't healed quite right.

 

[PixiePop]

Yes, when I was at Disney a couple of years ago...I fell and twisted my ankle. It started to swell, but I just thought I sprained it..went to the park and to the Halloween party the next day. After I got home and it was still hurting, I went to my doctor..I had a fracture and was in a boot cast for 6 weeks.

 

[arminnie]

When I was 23 and having surgery for a deviated septum, I was told that my nose had been broken.

I asked my parents if they had abused me.

You would have to know how sweet and non-violent my parents were to appreciate the irony of that. I knew they had not beaten me.

My poor mother was frantic though trying to remember if I'd ever hurt myself and had she ignored it. We never could figure out when it was broken. It doesn't look broken.

 

[Green Tea]

My child broke a foot at some point that we didn't know. It was found on a later xray as a healed fracture.

 

[ThePhantomsGirl]

I have a high tolerance to pain - so yes, I have broken bones without knowing it - twice actually. (yes, I felt pain but didn't think it was that bad)

 

[Acklander]

As an adult I had an x-ray that showed a previous break to my leg that had long since healed. This was the first I or my parents knew about it.

 

[RadioNate]

My back! Actually several vertebrae. My initial dx was sciatica but after experiencing back pain for more than 18 months I saw an orthopedic surgeon who did a bone scan and MRI, which revealed 3 completely shattered vertebrae and a mess of scar tissue.

 

[ziggystardust]

my sister shattered her ankle one night. she thought it was just a really bad sprain until the swelling and the massive black and blue wouldn't go away after 2 weeks. She had to have surgery.

My exBf's father had something similar to you. He was complaining of pain in his leg, doctor said it was a break from probably 15 yrs ago. It made for a funny story, but really nothing could be done about it so many yrs later

 

[thewishfire]

I think I broke both of my wrists in 4th grade. I refused to go to the doctor. To this day I still have a LOT of problems with them ... I just might go see a doctor about it soon. It's been botherin me for like 10 years already!

 

[bookgirl]

Hit my second toe when I was a kid (you know you walk into something thin and smack the heck out of it) I kept telling my mom it was hurt but being a smart mom she said walk it off . Years later I remark on how I have this "dead" spot on top of my toe and how it move independantly of the others (try it your toes all move together). I was then asked if I had ever hurt it. I tell the story and guess what I was told it was probably broken and since it quit hurting after a few days it had just healed on it's own. LOL I still give my mom grief on that one. But to be honest I was a bit of a whiner and there wasn't anything the could have done for it. But still.....

 

[Hercules10]

Probably every finger I got.

 

[wvrevy]

I've broken - at one time or another - bones in all of my fingers but one, the back of my right hand, and my right ankle. Only with the hand did I know it was broken fairly shortly. The rest I just taped up and kept playing (football). Most of them I knew had been broken, but a couple times I thought they were just sprained but it turned out otherwise.