A runner and a listener to the podcast recently sent in a question regarding how long it takes to heal an old fracture versus a new fracture.
There are many risk factors for developing problems with healing a broken bone.
Each year there are about six million broken bones the United States.
Somewhere between 5% and 10% of all of those fractures do not heal as quickly as we would hope and turn into what is called a fracture non-union or a delayed union.
A “fracture non-union” is just what it sounds like. It means to the fractured pieces of bone did not unite.
They did not get back together and the fracture just did not heal.
A “delayed union” is a broken bone that isn’t healing as quickly as we would expect.
This video by Dr. Christopher Segler talks about the difference in healing time of an “old fracture” vs a “recent fracture.”