Broken Growth Plate :(

[Melissa Hogan]

My daughter was tumbling and broke her right middle finger growth plate. She will have her cast removed on June 20th. The doctor said three additional weeks after that before tumbling or using that hand for any physical activity. I am still concerned about her reinjuring it. She did it while doing a round- back handspring. It was on the round-off, and it was jammed into the floor.

She is doing tick tocs on her forearms to keep the back flexibility. My plan is to after the six weeks is up to have her start doing front and back walkovers immediately with a spotter and on the trampoline. I guess we will go from there. Has anyone experienced this or have any advice on recovering and retraining? I am really nervous about throwing her right back into handsprings.

Thanks!

 

[cupieqt]

Coaches will usually ease their athletes coming back from injury into tumbling again. I would talk to her coach.

Typically I want a drs note clearing her to resume training, then I let the athlete start small (handstands, bwo) and work up from there. Trampoline is a good place to start on the skills that require more force just to make sure they are strong enough to take the weight (be it on their hands, knees, ankles or feet--whatever was injured). Kids are pretty resilient so she should bounce back quickly. I've had some come in and immediately throw all of their old skills in one session and others that took a while (bc of the fear of re-injury, not pain) so it's up to the individual.

 

[Karlssssss]

I have broken the growth plate in my wrist twice. I competed with my cast on, and had no problems. I had a competition the day after I got my cast off, however I did not tumble. I worked at my own pace to get back into tumbling. However my wrist still hurts sometimes. My doctor said usually when you have a growth plate injury it will always hurt, the only solution is to quit sports. So I just suck it up and deal with the pain.

 

[ufomom]

I took a video of what my daughter would be doing tumbling wise to her orthopedic doctor for her growth plate injury (4th grade) and he ended up casting her longer than originally planned to make sure she was fully healed. Better to be conservative. It's too important. There were too many kids with similar injuries who ended up re-breaking their arms from similar injuries in our circle of friends.