 |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|||
 |
 |
|
||
 |
|
|||
 |
 |
|
||
 |
|
|||
 |
 |
|
||
 |
|
|||
 |
|
|||
 |
|
|||
 |
|
|||
 |
|
|||
 |
|
|||
 |
|
|||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||
|
Fractures
of the collarbone are among the most common broken bones in kids. These usually happen after a fall on the shoulder
or arm, with falls off a bicycle being a particularly common cause of
the injury. It is usually
easy to tell if it’s broken; there is pain over the collarbone and there
may be obvious deformity such as the ends of the broken bone pressing
up on the skin. An x-ray will
confirm the diagnosis. |
||||
|
This is a picture of a broken clavicle. The arrow show where the collar bone is broken. |
||||
|
The treatment
of a broken clavicle is quite simple.
It is often said that if the ends of the broken collarbone are
in the same room, they will heal! All that is usually required is a sling for
comfort or perhaps a clavicle strap, a form of brace that puts pressure
over the collar bone and provides some stability for comfort during healing. Clavicle fractures heal by making a “lump”
of bone known as fracture callus, which serves to knit the two ends of
the bone back together. Over time,
the lump of bone will go away as the clavicle remodels back into its original
shape. Clavicle
fractures in children almost never require surgery, and are generally
well on their way to healing by 3 weeks (which is about as long as you
can continue to keep your child in a sling, anyway).
There are a few exceptions; if the bone comes through the skin
(rare), it will need surgery right away.
In the rare instance that the fracture does not heal on its own,
we often think that there might be a rare condition known as congenital
pseudoarthrosis of the clavicle (which is always on the right side). |
||||
 |
 |
|||
| ||||
