Let's talk injuries!

[PeanutButterShammyCream]

Hey guys. I have ridden across the USA and Europe. Last year I had an I.T. Band Release Surgery on my knee. It has been 9 months since the surgery, and I am still not fully recovered. I have a fear that I may not be able to ride cross country like I used to.

I would like to know if any of you have had injuries or surgeries in the past, and how did they affect your biking experiences? Please feel free to share your experiences, regardless if they are positive or negative. Thanks!

[staehpj1]

Being old as dirt, I have had a wide variety of injuries and quite a few surgeries that affected various sports that I participated in, including bicycling.  I find that if I do my assigned PT religiously during recovery and keep it up for a year after I am released and back to riding or whatever, don't do stuff before my physical therapist gives me the go ahead, and when I do go start out at an easy pace for the first couple weeks, that I am fine.

I have had a knee injury while on tour that I feared would end my ST tour and made me expect to have surgery when I got home, but I nursed it along taking it easy and even walking where the climbs were the worst.  Before the end of the tour it was near 100% and no treatment was required.

[zzzz]

I tore an ACL while playing a pick up game of basketball 13-14 years ago. I got the repair surgery and went to PT and followed all the instructions to the letter but my knee was still not right and kept swelling up. After several months I came to realize I could ride the rollers and it seemed to make it feel better and it wasn't taking on fluid. Then I started riding outside, driving to the start of the ride in the valley to avoid the hills. A couple months later I started riding everywhere and haven't thought about the knee since.

The lesson I took from it was listen to the PT people, give it a serious and sustained effort, but if it's not working out and your body is telling you something, pay attention.

Pete

[Ty0604]

The lesson I took from it was listen to the PT people, give it a serious and sustained effort, but if it's not working out and your body is telling you something, pay attention.

+1

I was hit by a car on 2/15/17 while riding the Southern Tier and spent 10 days in the ICU at a San Diego trauma center. Over the next 4 months I went through PT 5 days a week 4-8 hours a day. It was grueling but the doctors knew what was best. A few weeks after finishing PT I did a 1,500 mile tour from Missoula down through Yellowstone/Grand Teton NP and back to Missoula. The tour was relatively easy and I was in better shape then than I was before the accident. Today the only side effect I have from the accident are migraines and some memory loss. A small price to pay considering how bad the accident was.

Otherwise I was hit again in August 2017 (this time though it was 100% my fault....) and suffered a broken scaphoid. It's a large carpal bone articulating the radius below your thumb forming the carpal tunnel. The scaphoid bone is one of the harder bones to heal and nonunion is common. Blood supply to the scaphoid is very poor. Because of that the fracture lacks the oxygen and nutrients it needs to heal. Anyway, mine healed without surgery but it healed displaced slightly. It still bothers me today and probably will forever. I invested in some shock absorbent handlebar tape to take some of the pressure off of the bone. The bone is right where most people will rest their hand on the bars while riding. I can't say how it'll affect my riding since I haven't done any long distance cycling since the accident.

The last thing I've had to deal with is tendonitis in my achilles. 3 days into my 2016 cross country ride I began getting terrible pains in my achilles and could hear the tendon rubbing. I went to the ER and they prescribed me an anti-inflammatory drug. The tendonitis was caused by me not stretching before/during/after my long days of cycling. For the remaining 3 months of my tour I took Meloxicam (you can buy it at most stores over the counter) and stretched daily before/during/after my ride. It bothered me for a few weeks but it went away. Still today I take Meloxicam just to avoid any swelling.

If you don't already I'd highly recommend stretching as much as you can before/during/after your rides to avoid any tendonitis. If I'd left mine untreated it's likely it would have ruptured.

Happy riding!

[BikeliciousBabe]

I missed a tour in Montana due to a knee injury.

[Joyride]

Three years ago, I was unloading a very heavy shop compressor off of the back of my pickup, when I stumbled and pitched head-long off the ramp. I naturally put out my hands to break my fall, and shattered the ulna of my right wrist. It was horribly mutilated. The end of the bone where it makes the socket for the mating pats of the joint was smashed as if it were a flower opening up. I was in surgery for six hours. Luckily, I had one of the best orthopedic surgeons you can find, and he took my wrist as a personal challenge, and meticulously went at it. Titanium plate and twelve screws. All in all, I was six months in various casts, and another six months of physical therapy - which was the absolute worst part - so painful! Anyway, I have about 98% of my hand movement back.



What this did for me as far as touring goes, is that I now require upright handlebars to keep the pressure off my wrist. I don't mind. A nice Brooks saddle and Jones Loop bars, and I'm off to the races!

[jmfrilett]

Are you able to ride now? how's it going. What was the cause of IT Band problem? Improper bike set up may contribute to IT band problems. Try to find therapist/Sports MD with bicycle knowledge. Sometimes slightly lowering saddle will relieve IT band problem but check with someone bike medical experience.

[hikerjer]

In the summer of 2016, I started out on my dream tour from Portland, OR to Savannah. 14 months earlier I had  complete knee replacement surgery on my right knee.  After a year of rehap and exercise, it appeared to be good as new. I'd skied on it that winter, biked a couple of centuries and had the OK form the doc. Long story short, after biking fro Portland to SF and across the  Sierras via Yosemite, things were great. Then at about 2000 miles, in the middle of the  Nevada desert, my knee began to give me excruciating pain to the point I couldn't stand it. I ended up having to abort the trip and taking a bus home.  Terribly disappointing.  At home, I went back to my surgeon and told him my sad story,  After he examined me and x-rayed the knee, he could find no obvious problems and concluded that I had just pushed myself and my knee too much. I was doing 80-80 miles a day in Nevada over numerous  mountain passes (Nevada is not flat) with a fully loaded touring bike. Since then I have recovered totally, I think, and have had no problems with the knee at all. That's my story. I'm currently 69 and if things fall into place, plan on taking a cross country tour again this summer from Portland to Savannah but I'm staying out of fricking Nevada, thank you very much.

[PeanutButterShammyCream]

Are you able to ride now? how's it going. What was the cause of IT Band problem? Improper bike set up may contribute to IT band problems. Try to find therapist/Sports MD with bicycle knowledge. Sometimes slightly lowering saddle will relieve IT band problem but check with someone bike medical experience.

Thank you for asking! It has now been 10 months since the surgery. I am about 90% healed. My physical therapist thinks that I should be able to make a full recovery. It has been A LOT of hard work to get to this point though. For the last 10 months, every single day has been dedicated to strengthening and stretching my left leg.

The cause of the IT band problem was a muscular imbalance. Without knowing it, I was over-using my lateral (outside) quadriceps muscle, and neglecting the medial (inner) quadriceps.

I have been working with a bike fit professional, and he put me in an ideal position. Thanks for chiming in!

[PeanutButterShammyCream]

In the summer of 2016, I started out on my dream tour from Portland, OR to Savannah. 14 months earlier I had  complete knee replacement surgery on my right knee.  After a year of rehap and exercise, it appeared to be good as new. I'd skied on it that winter, biked a couple of centuries and had the OK form the doc. Long story short, after biking fro Portland to SF and across the  Sierras via Yosemite, things were great. Then at about 2000 miles, in the middle of the  Nevada desert, my knee began to give me excruciating pain to the point I couldn't stand it. I ended up having to abort the trip and taking a bus home.  Terribly disappointing.  At home, I went back to my surgeon and told him my sad story,  After he examined me and x-rayed the knee, he could find no obvious problems and concluded that I had just pushed myself and my knee too much. I was doing 80-80 miles a day in Nevada over numerous  mountain passes (Nevada is not flat) with a fully loaded touring bike. Since then I have recovered totally, I think, and have had no problems with the knee at all. That's my story. I'm currently 69 and if things fall into place, plan on taking a cross country tour again this summer from Portland to Savannah but I'm staying out of fricking Nevada, thank you very much.

Thanks for your response. So when you re-injured yourself, what exactly what it that you were feeling? Was it just really bad soreness? Was it the same sensation that you had before having a knee replacement?

[hikerjer]

Different sort of pain.  Hard to describe but just a sharp shooting pain in the front and side of  the knee.  I was OK when walking but the pedaling action was killing me. I've ridden a lot since then and it hasn't bothered me in the least.

[PeanutButterShammyCream]

Different sort of pain.  Hard to describe but just a sharp shooting pain in the front and side of  the knee.  I was OK when walking but the pedaling action was killing me. I've ridden a lot since then and it hasn't bothered me in the least.

It is interesting that you say that, because that was the EXACT same pain that I felt in my knee before my surgery. I only felt it while riding, and I was able to walk just fine.

[hikerjer]

Surprisingly, before my surgery, riding didn't bother my knee that much. It was walking, especially down hill and stairs that  really put me under the knife.  So glad I did it, though.