Broken bones are more often than not associated with old ladies.

Granted, old bones are decidedly more vulnerable, but they are not the only bones that can find themselves in pieces.

Every year, thousands of youngish bones, find themselves in pieces following a vicious blow. The source of the trauma may be a bully, a bus or an imprudent backflip i.e. you did something “stupid”.

Putting the bones back together

Bones that are broken, need a lot of help and support to put themselves back together.

Plaster casts and plates are used to provide the necessary structural support. But bone reconstruction, depends on a steady supply of all the necessary building blocks too.

Bone building supplements are seldom prescribed to the so called young and healthy. It is assumed, young bones automatically have access to these bone building ingredients.

But………. maybe they don’t.

Vitamin D in short supply

Indoor living, coupled with deliberate sun avoidance, has left lots of people running low on vitamin D.

Orthopaedic trauma patients, are no exception.

This was the finding of researchers from the University of Missouri, when they ran the numbers on the patients who had checked into the Level 1 trauma centre between 1 January 2009 and 30 Sept 2010. Of the 1830 adults, 39 % had levels below 20 ng/mL, making them “deficient” and 38.4 % had levels below 40 ng/mL, making them “insufficient”.

That is a wopping 77 % of patients potentially missing a vital bone ingredient.

Since Vitamin D is a major player in the bone business – these lower levels, could impact on recovery. Either dragging out the restoration process, extending the time to full recovery or worse still, preventing a full recovery i.e. the bone fracture fails to heal. It happens !

Add a vitamin D splint

If one or more of your bones has been fractured….. don’t just rely on the plaster cast to provide physical support.

Give your bone a biochemical splint – get those vitamin D levels tested and ensure your levels are in the normal range. Supplement or sun tan, whilst you convalesce.

P.S. To provide your bones with the other ingredients needed to get the bone building job done quick quick – include a couple of prunes and a glass or two of milk in your daily routine.

Vitamin D Insufficiency Common Among Orthopaedic Trauma Patients – Low levels not confined to the elderly.  Abstract presented at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS)  

 

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