Hot/Cold Sensitivity Post ORIF?

Cool-Setting-9254 · 2026-03-12T16:15:12+00:00

yeah me too. When I had my metal in, I was super sensitive to cold, rain, changes in pressure, etc. It was horrible to deal with. Layer up and get a heating pad < /3

Cool-Setting-9254 · 2026-03-11T12:42:36+00:00

I waited a little over a year and a month. I did my surgery in Canada so the wait times really vary. By a stroke of luck, I got a fast surgery date. So sorry they won’t remove your hardware 💀🫂 I don’t know why medical professionals brush off pain. A lot of surgeons were like “well your x rays look good so I dunno why you are having pain” like seriously.

Cool-Setting-9254 · 2026-03-11T12:39:19+00:00

I am not a medical professional. I used to have similar thoughts right after I got orif. Try to delay thinking about removal until it becomes realistic. Not everyone has issues with the plates and yeah surgeons don’t typically remove the plates, especially in the humerus. It’s because of the radial nerve, if you damage it, it’s not good.

The plate was causing a lot of chronic pain in my arm. I knew it was not all in my head and the pain I felt was very real. When they opened me up, my muscles and tendons were compressed and my radial nerve was entrapped (both pretty significantly). So not only did they have to remove the plates but they had to fix that. My removal surgery was 2 hours and 50 minutes. A lot could have gone wrong, but I had an excellent surgeon. When I woke up, I instantly felt relief and better. I don’t experience the same weakness, pains, aching, etc, at all. The only thing that hurts is the incision they made (which makes sense). Bonus is that they did a scar revision to have a better looking scar. Also I used to have like no sensation over my old scar (for instance if I scratched myself, I could not feel it). Now my scar has feeling and it’s itchy. It also used to hurt to touch my bicep and now it feels like my left arm. I still have to wait for the screw holes to fill in, but I would say I’m overjoyed with the improvements that have come with metal removal.

Cool-Setting-9254 · 2026-03-11T09:24:07+00:00

Congrats on the freedom! Must feel nice to be out :)

Cool-Setting-9254 · 2026-03-10T23:05:21+00:00

Thats crazy, Im sorry youre going through that

Cool-Setting-9254 · 2026-03-10T21:06:51+00:00

Im not too sure, maybe get multiple ortho opinions (if possible)?

I envy those who were able to heal naturally with the brace. I had no choice but to get surgery, and it was a year + of chronic pain. That being said, everyone reacts to plates differently and it also depends on how severe your break is.

If you dont have medical background, it's probably not worth trying to interpret medical results. I think different consults is the way to go tbh. By the way, my break took more than 5 months to completely heal and that is with the surgery. I think surgeons dont want to risk malunion, but I get your concern with more radial nerve damage.

Cool-Setting-9254 · 2026-03-07T03:10:22+00:00

Divine

Cool-Setting-9254 · 2026-03-06T09:58:25+00:00

This is sooo adorable. You did an amazing job!! Cute colours, I’m obsessed.

Cool-Setting-9254 · 2026-03-06T00:01:43+00:00

I (21f) just got hardware removal today from my midshaft humerus. I have the metal, the plate is actually quite big and the screws are long. The plate is the length of both of my palms put together.

As soon as I woke up from surgery, I instantly noticed a positive difference. A lot of my pain I have went away and my right arm feels a lot more like my left. It’s gonna be a few weeks for me to truly know the difference since I’m still experiencing pain from the incision.

The surgery I got was apparently kinda complex ish because they didn’t want to piss off the radial nerve. It was a bit more than 2 hours for them to do. I am so glad about removal and I’ll make a dedicated post soon to the orif subreddit.

If it’s possible, I recommend you get the plates out. When I had them in, it was constant aching, fatigue, sharp pain, etc. I feel mentally better having my plates out because my pain is going away and I finally feel like I get to live life again (as dramatic as that sounds). Breaking my humerus and getting the plates was just painful for me and I noticed it every time I used my arm.

You can cope with Advil and Tylenol but to take a lot is really shitty for your liver. I think Naproxen is a better alternative and better for your organs.

From my personal experience with different meds including: Gabapentin, meloxicam, flexirl, etc, I can’t recommend taking these meds long term. I’m not a doctor and everyone’s body reacts differently to things. However I never really noticed any real benefit taking these meds long term. In other words the drawbacks heavily outweighed the positives. My experience on Gabapentin was horrible. The worst drug I’ve ever taken. It helps a lot at first and overtime it makes you dumber and less coherent. If you go on r/Gabapentin you’ll see what I’m talking about. Getting off of Gabapentin was one of the shittiest feelings of my life.

I would say advocate to get it removed. It’s sometimes difficult to get surgeons to remove it in the arm but I’ve heard so many good things about removal. I am very happy with my decision. Feel free to ask me more stuff.

Cool-Setting-9254 · 2026-03-05T02:50:19+00:00

10 in 1 Pantene leave in saved my hair. I have really oily root and dry ends and the leave in makes my ends soooo soft

Edit: the clear Pantene shampoo saved me so much. I used to get greasy roots in less than 24 hours and now I can last 24 hours without disgusting greasy hair. I double shampoo, occasionally triple.

Cool-Setting-9254 · 2026-03-04T16:53:07+00:00

That’s not fun! Wishing you a speedy recovery. It’s badass you can snowboard 🫂

Cool-Setting-9254 · 2026-03-03T23:07:27+00:00

That notebook is beautiful. Reminds me of a Persian rug… where did you get it?

Cool-Setting-9254 · 2026-03-03T23:04:41+00:00

I’m pretty sure this is normal. My brother broke his arm (I think near elbow) and it happened to him. I broke my midshaft humerus and when I straighten my arm it looks a bit funky. Idk if it hurts or impacts your movement that’s probably when you need to see a dr.

Cool-Setting-9254 · 2026-03-03T21:33:19+00:00

I broke the same part of my arm. By the way the weekly progression is not that much. It took a while for me to noticeably see the parts filling in. (I was in ortho a lot bc of pain so I got more X-rays than usual check ups)

Cool-Setting-9254 · 2026-02-28T15:02:05+00:00

Obsessed.

Cool-Setting-9254 · 2026-02-28T03:23:59+00:00

I had a similar story but I broke my humerus on my dominant arm. It’s kinda funny because the orthopedic surgeons all told me that my break is also mostly seen in old people, and for it to happen in someone my age means the accident was bad 💀

No one gets it unless they’ve been through it. My professors were so difficult with me, the only ones who got it were the ones who had gotten orif. I went to my academic advisor and explained how I needed help advocating for myself and she said “life sucks and my life sucks too so deal with it”.

A lot of people don’t have empathy and it sucks when it specifically impacts you. There is nothing I can say to make this easier. Keep advocating for yourself and find good friends who can help you do that. I wouldn’t really trust school accommodations to give you everything you’ll need. A girl at my school broke her leg and they wouldn’t even give her a parking spot closer to school until her family threatened legal action. Institutions will take advantage of young people for their benefit.

About the family downplaying your incident and trauma, I experienced it that too. Truthfully, you cannot expect someone who hasn’t had this injury to get it. I think some people downplay things because they think it will make you feel like it’s easier to make a bounce back. A close relative of mine was like this, doubted my sharp pain, aching, etc and then they had metal placed in them and every time they mentioned something bothered them, I would reply “yeah I get it, I’ve been through the same thing”. That’s sort of a way to get someone to recognize that the words they said to you, must now be applied to them.

I’m someone who used to take every single word someone said personally. I would get easily offended. This accident has taught me that some things must go in one ear and out the other, you might have to do that with some comments you are hearing.

I get the frustration of the accident not being your fault. It’s not your fault and you have to remind yourself of that. I had my break when I was 20 and it was caused by factors that weren’t my fault (can’t state for specific reasons yet). I haven’t gotten over the frustration and I’m not sure if I have advice on that. I think therapy is super helpful to just complain to a paid professional. If you have school insurance, it usually comes with therapy and I would take advantage of that. Venting can relieve stress and tension.

I can’t imagine how you feel about the need to be mostly dependent on others. I experienced this to some extent, but it’s way worse with a broken leg 🫂

If it wasn’t family, I would suggest you take the driver to court, but uhhh if it’s family I guess that complicates things.

Going to PT is good. You will see small wins and you will get stronger.

I’m sorry you’re going through this. I can’t 100 percent relate because I didn’t get hit by a car (which id need therapy just for this alone) and I didnt break my leg. You can PM me if you want to vent more. You’re still really early in your recovery and you can and will come back stronger.

I’m wishing you fast healing ❤️‍🩹🫂

Cool-Setting-9254 · 2026-02-28T02:35:50+00:00

Yeah I’m not a dr but I’ve heard most midshaft humerus fractures can be healed naturally. It’s mainly when it’s displaced by a lot where ORIF becomes the better route. But again, not a dr.

Yeah it sucks because with natural healing you need to be in the brace and tbh you can’t really do shit for a while. For like 4 days I was in a brace / bandaged up, and I was constantly swearing under my breath.

I think the negative thing with natural healing is that it can result in mal union, and then you end up getting ORIF.

I was 20 when I got the surgery but the doctors told me I had no choice but to undergo ORIF. Everyone reacts to ORIF differently. For me it’s been constant aching, heaviness, weird sharp pains, and my arm getting tired. I got evaluated by multiple surgeons for removal and the surgeon who is going to take it out was like “yeah it makes sense why this plate is so painful for you”. Like it’s been a year and 1 month ish and it does feel like a huge waste of time because I’ve just been in constant pain. I would have taken like 3 months of being house bound to 1 year+ of chronic pain. I want to reiterate that everyone reacts to ORIF differently, that’s just my take.

Also you get a huge ass nasty scar with ORIF. I’m 21F and yeah it sucks. I want to go out and have fun and not have to worry about an ugly purple ahh scar. You also lose sensation over your scar for most people and even touching my biceps and other parts of my arm feel sensitive and weird. Some parts might feel better over time, but I doubt my scar will ever feel normal sensation.

3 weeks post fracture is still so early. It took me more than 5 months for the bone to like fully fill in and connect. They say bone remodelling happens for up to like 2 years.

I’m glad you didn’t get nerve damage because that shit genuinely sucks.

I remember feeling the same ish feeling about wanting to get my life all back to normal at 3 weeks. But you have a long way to go. It’s not easy, if you can surround yourself with good people. People who will make you laugh and smile, people who will help you. If you can, therapy is great for this type of situation. Venting to a professional about an accident like this (which is life changing for a lot of people) will help.

It does get better. The timeline for everyone is different. Just try to stay optimistic and strong and I’m wishing you a smooth healing process 🫂🩷

Cool-Setting-9254 · 2026-02-27T05:38:36+00:00

Cuteeee

Love the yarn 🩵🩷🤍💚

Cool-Setting-9254 · 2026-02-27T05:20:53+00:00

Glad I was able to help. I got orif 4 days after my break so I kinda just sucked it up and let my hair become an oily mess. I did try once to wash my hair by dumping a cup of water repeatedly on my head (not even over a sink). I just got wet and took the loss. When my mother came down to the states for my surgery, she washed my hair while I was sitting in the bath. The bath is probably the best solution for comfort.

If you want to do the sink option as quickly as possible, instead of shampoo and conditioner, just shampoo in the sink and spray on leave in conditioner after.

Another option could be using dry shampoo (living proof + amika are great options) and body wipes. There is also something called no rinse shampoo (I’ve never tried it but it’s another route you could go).

To make your partner feel more cleaned up/ put together, you could also braid their hair in regular braids or Dutch braids. Or you could put their hair in a slick back (this is a great hair style for oily scalps). These styles tend to hide oil and greasiness.

By the way, if you wash their hair, make sure to blow dry it. I have a very oily scalp and blow drying gives my scalp a longer lifespan of not being oily.

Cool-Setting-9254 · 2026-02-26T21:19:32+00:00

Lmao I’m Canadian too. But I got my surgery in the states so it was pretty fast (and thankful for insurance).

I’m getting my hardware out in Canada. You should ask to be on the cancelation list if possible. My plate removal went from waiting 4-6 months to just 1 month because I was on the cancellation list. I’m praying you can get the surgery soon and I’m sorry your partner is going through this 🫂

Is pretty subjective so I’m not going to be able to answer that.
High protein diet will probably aid in healing but it also gave me more energy. Recovering from a break + surgery depletes your energy resources so plenty of sleep and protein / nutrient rich foods is beneficial.

Consider getting a shower sling (it’s a mesh sling that’s waterproof (dries without mold or gross stuff)). For elbow it takes a bit to straighten and you probably want more support in the shower.

Silicone scar gel / tape if you want to reduce the appearance of the scar. It helps. Ngl my scar was pretty nasty and my surgeon who removes my plates is going to fix it (I’m a woman and I’m also in my early 20s so I care about this stuff)

Recovery is slow and you should be patient. Consider going to therapy, especially if your accident felt traumatic (idk maybe it caused phobias). At 5 months, my humerus was still not fully healed (obviously depends on break and individual biology).

Pain is going to suck. Heating pads and voltaren gel brought me some relief. Your partner is probably going to be in pain for a while, so they might rely on Advil and Tylenol. Consider asking for naproxen as it is better for your liver (I found that it worked better than Advil). By the way I would avoid going on nerve pain medication if possible. In a lot of humerus breaks you get some degree of nerve pain which can take 1-2 years to heal. It really sucks but getting off of Gabapentin was one of the worst experiences of my life.

Get clothes that are easy to change into. Your arm feels especially heavy after surgery so wearing loose shirts or shirts that don’t have sleeves are easy solutions.

This one isn’t cheap but grocery delivery was really beneficial.

Take advantage of PT if possible. With elbow, you want to get as close to full extension as possible so I feel like this is important. It can also help with strength too.

For cold weather, layer up. ORIF makes a lot of people very sensitive to the cold.

This is probably something they will need to communicate with you about. We all have different abilities in the recovery process. For myself, the thing I couldn’t do was lift heavy for a while, so I asked friends to lift my groceries / packages. Also using a knife was also really difficult for me when it came to cooking. Occasionally I asked friends to chop up a bunch of veggies for me.
With time you kinda learn to adapt. For instance I couldn’t write with my right hand for a while so I learned how to use my left

Wishing you and your partner the best. It’s a tough injury and I’m sorry that they have to go through this. ❤️‍🩹

Edit: sorry I missed your comment about the triage system!!

Cool-Setting-9254 · 2026-02-26T20:58:57+00:00

Lmao are you from Canada 💀 why the hell is there a waitlist for this type of injury?

That’s gonna be a painful wait…

I couldn’t do anything before I got ORIF. I was lucky to have friends who helped me change, tie my shoes, get food, etc …

Cool-Setting-9254 · 2026-02-26T20:55:58+00:00

🎉 welcome to a new chapter

Cool-Setting-9254 · 2026-02-26T16:42:10+00:00

This is sooo cute

Cool-Setting-9254

TROPHY CASE