From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Treatment for contusion of shin bone?
Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2003 14:20:46 -0700
Message-ID: <b8hhn9$v5f$1@slb0.atl.mindspring.net>

2 or 3 weeks. Should be more or less gone in a month. So
long as it's not hot or red, it is healing and will get
better. Patience.


"Fred Moon" <noemail@please.com> wrote in message
news:uo2oav41qt2i9nkhktm98hknvodp9dterk@4ax.com...
> I dropped an automobile starter motor on my left shin, consequent
> abrasion and swelling in front shin midway between ankle and knee,
> Applied ice and later ace bandage for a few days. No increase in pain
> from walking or working, 2-3 inch area swollen out about a half inch,
> but not discolored.
> 
> I am a 49 year old male with type 2 diabetes under good control (last
> a1c = 5.7) and otherwise in good health (still have good circulation to
> feet, no neuropathy).
> 
> Is there any home treatment to aid healing?  How long do these things
> take to heal?
> 
> Of course, I realize you can not diagnose over the internet, and I
> assume all responsibility for my own actions.
>
> Thanks, Fred
>

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Treatment for contusion of shin bone?
Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2003 19:31:19 -0700
Message-ID: <b8i3ti$ath$1@slb9.atl.mindspring.net>

"PF Riley" <pfriley@watt-not.com> wrote in message
news:3eac7daf.192219808@news.nwlink.com...
> On Sun, 27 Apr 2003 14:20:46 -0700, "Steve Harris"
> <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com> wrote:
>
> >2 or 3 weeks. Should be more or less gone in a month. So
> >long as it's not hot or red, it is healing and will get
> >better. Patience.
>
> But I would suspect there may be a nontender residual hematoma for a
> few months after that.

COMMENT:

Could be. But patience is still the answer. Healing can be
slow. If you still have some hard lump from soft tissue or
tendon injuries (not that this guy sounds like he has the
last) it can take a YEAR to see what you're going to have
permanently in the natural uninterupted course of things, in
the way of edema resolution, fibrous scar formation, and
"permanent" functional impairment. And even scars can mature
a bit after that (turn pink to white, change texture, etc).
For neuro injuries the basic rule is one to two years, and
even that's not hard and fast (look at Christopher Reeves).

This is sort of the same situation people get into with
(say) back pain from an acute injury with no fracture. Wish
I had $1 for every impatient person who had something that
looked like it might be nerve impingment on MRI, but had a
choice to wait, and yet still got his or her (say) back
operated on without waiting at least a year to see if it
would get better all by itself. A lot of them would have
gotten better spontaneously, and think of the money, time
and problems saved!  In medicine, when you and your docs are
not quite certain what to do a few months after an
non-infected injury, do nothing!  For a while more, anyway.
I personally wouldn't let them do a discectomy on me unless
I was dragging one leg like the mummy of Rameses II in some
bad old movie.

And if I start of think of all the *MRI* money wasted on
people with back pain who aren't limping, my BP is going to
go into the stroke range. I wonder, for instance, if they
MRI'd this poor shin bruise guy when the X-ray was negative.
Radiologists have stolen a large hunk of medicine, and
that's because the wisdom to just *leave it alone* and not
worry about it for awhile, in our Nintendo culture, doesn't
have any payoffs for the patient or the doctor. It is a
principle which mainly benefits greedy HMOs owners and
bureaucrats in Socialist Pestholes. Who, naturally, go
overboard and abuse it.

Gaaaaaah.

SBH