Since my cycling injury, my biking has been confined to the bike trainer. At a follow-up appointment today with the orthopedic surgeon, who is also a sports medicine doctor, I was given the clearance to start to run and bike, as long as I used the splint. I am lucky that I did not need a cast and even more lucky that no surgery was required.

At the emergency room they used a simple splint after finding the fracture in my left thumb, but the following day when I visited the orthopedic surgeon, he made a new splint. It is kind of a neat process. It looks like a pad of cloth with some foam on one side. After cutting it to fit my hand, he got it wet, then wrapped it around my hand and thumb to form fit. Then to hold it in place, he wrapped in in gaze. It is much better for me than a cast because I can unwrap it and remove it if I need to.

At today’s visit he remove the splint to examine my hand and then used the same splint, wrapping it this time in an ace bandage. He said this type of splint is bullet proof and some have even used it when playing football. This image shows the splint on my left hand wrapped in the bandage.

This afternoon we went out for the first time on a bike. I was hesitant to use a road bike because of the need to brake and shift with the left hand so I went on my mountain bike instead, and Anne went on her road bike. We only went 20 miles, but that seemed like a long ways on a mountain bike. We had a nice tail wind coming back home, getting our speed up to 24 mph. That is rather fast for a mountain bike. I think I will put my slick tires on my mountain bike and use it for now to ride outside in keep the road bike on the trainer. I can still use my left fingers (to do things like type this blog) and to get a little grip on the handlebars, but most of the stability comes from my right hand.

I had another xray to day also and the doctor called and said it looked fine and to just come back and see him in 5 weeks. I need to keep using the splint for that entire time. This is the splint itself, with the ace bandage removed.

I am real happy to be biking again but I hesitate to use the tandem while I need to use the splint, so it is single bikes for awhile.   Although I am not so excited about the splint for another  5 weeks, there is one good thing.  My left hand now has a palm rest when I am typing.

Categories: Cycling
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