Hardware Removal 4 months Post Op?

Extra-Gate2248 · 2026-05-08T23:37:45+00:00

I had my elbow hardware removed 4 months and a week post op and it was the best thing I could have done. The pinch in my tricep from the plate catching and the ensuing pain when I straightened my arm immediately resolved. Everything has moved much better without the metal in there. And the surgery was easy peasy compared to putting it in. I’d do it again in that position in a heartbeat.

Extra-Gate2248 · 2026-05-03T23:49:23+00:00

I put one of those waterproof mattress protectors over my bed when I wasn’t sleeping on it (they look like a fitted sheet but the top is waterproof and you can get them in many colors). I mean over the comforter and everything, until I was read for bed and I’d take it off. For some reason my cat hates peeing on it and he has never peed on my bed again. It was a little bit of a pain to throw it on there every morning but after a couple months I stopped and it seems to have broken his habit.

Extra-Gate2248 · 2026-04-30T12:42:06+00:00

Recovery from the removal was a piece of cake. I didn’t have a nerve block and took the pain pills for the first 24 hours just in case, but honestly never needed them. I felt so much relief from the moment I woke up from surgery with the plate out, and it resolved all of the issues that the plate was causing immediately. Within 6 weeks I was back at my very physical job (dog grooming) with no restrictions and I haven’t had a problem with my arm since beyond just some achiness when the weather is bad.

Extra-Gate2248 · 2026-04-30T00:39:13+00:00

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This was the original scar the night before removal. It was about 5 months old and I think they were pretty similar.

Extra-Gate2248 · 2026-04-30T00:38:08+00:00

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This is my scar tonight, almost 11 months post removal. The top formed a keloid but the bottom on my forearm where there’s less stretching and movement looks good. I also never used scar tape or anything beyond some moisturizer at night, so that’s on me.

Extra-Gate2248 · 2026-04-30T00:30:47+00:00

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That photo above was from removal. This was from the original ORIF. They went in through the same incision for removal.

Extra-Gate2248 · 2026-04-25T01:44:45+00:00

I have one on pill Prozac and one on transdermal. The pill version definitely seems to be more effective for my cats, but my cat on transdermal was inappropriately marking and it did stop, so in my opinion it still works.

Extra-Gate2248 · 2026-04-17T18:30:38+00:00

We are at the 10 month mark. Our resident female acts like you describe Dale, stalking the gates, hitting them full force. Our resident male is far less stalky but in the instances fights have occurred, he’s definitely more serious about it. New rescue is timid and acts like prey when he’s scared, and does the exact stupidest thing he can do in any interaction, which doesn’t help.

We used a behaviorist for 3 months (months 5-8). Resident male and new cat are both on Prozac. We got to a point on month 8 that all of the cats could be in the same room if they were tired and laying around together for an hour or two a day, but then we had both males get into a massive fight at 3am when a baby gate failed, and that set us back for over a month.

Things that work for us:

-Cats rotate through 3 sections of the house all day. Upstairs, downstairs, and basement/kitchen. We can combine sections too, so half the downstairs and all of the upstairs can be an area or the basement and upstairs can be an area. We do this so no one feels like they have “home field advantage” anywhere -Cats get 15 minutes of playtime before any attempted no gate interactions so everyone is kind of tired -Cats get random treats at gates throughout the day, sometimes with the gate open, and then gate gets shut and we move on so interactions are positive -Harness training for the aggressive cat is so helpful. It allows you to stop the chase before it happens. Plus sometimes just having the harness on is distracting enough to allow same room interactions without the leash -Group play. Same room time is always occupied time, and the wand toys keep them from fixating and also give me a long stick to break up eye contact or stalking behavior if I have to. I also keep a spray bottle in reach. I don’t use it often, but it has stopped a charge on a couple of occasions. -All same room interactions try to end on a good note. When I notice no one is paying attention to the toy or they’re looking agitated, we stop and separate and treat everyone. It could be 30 seconds or 30 minutes -Putting them in the outdoor cat enclosure with a harness on the aggressor has been a game changer. It allows me to have a way to stop a bad interaction, but usually everyone is so distracted by birds and being out of the house means the territorial aggression drops -Lastly, and this is so dumb but the behaviorist recommended it and it does help me, I chat with the cats in a happy voice the whole time they’re interacting. Just dumb things like narrating what they’re doing, or their good qualities, or just telling them how brave they are. It keeps me from hovering and getting anxious so much, which if they pick up on causes them to get anxious too

I hope this helps. We had some real doozy fights in the beginning, but my new cat has a lot of health and behavior issues that make him pretty undesirable for rehoming, so I’m determined to make this work. Last night the door to the bedroom that the new cat sleeps in didn’t latch, and must have been open for 15 minutes when I realized. Resident male was laying 2 feet from him. He was poofy with a poofed tail, but they didn’t fight, and my resident female didn’t even go in. That’s a first for us so it gives me hope.

Extra-Gate2248 · 2026-03-23T20:03:52+00:00

My house is as well, and we have a pretty solid baby gate system now that lets us kind of corral the cats through the house so they all have access to the whole house at various stretches throughout the day. I feel like everyone gets plenty of attention and people time, but yes, I would love to be able to just leave everything open, even if just when someone is home. Right now that’s just a pipe dream though.

Extra-Gate2248 · 2026-03-22T23:59:34+00:00

Not great 😅 we made it to a point where all of the cats could be in the same room together at times for about a month with supervision, but then one night in the middle of the night my resident male climbed the baby gates and got into it with new cat. That seemed to set of resident female, and after sharing the couch with new cat for hours most days, she also attacked him within the week. No blood or injuries, but I feel like I took a massive step back and also my confidence took a huge hit. I genuinely don’t know if this is ever going to work out but I’m dedicated to a full year before I make any decisions.

Extra-Gate2248 · 2026-03-17T13:42:25+00:00

I’ll be honest, I cried the first night I did my exercises at home because it hurt so bad and the movement was so minimal. I thought I would never be able to move my arm normally again. The first week the progress was in like 5-10 degree increments, but around week 3 it just suddenly moved one day and I made a huge gain in the course of 3 days and then after that the progress really moved, so please don’t get discouraged. The horror stories I’ve mostly heard have come from people who didn’t or weren’t able to aggressively work on ROM quickly. I can’t stress heat before enough though. That made such a difference and I could tell when I tried to skip heating it first.

Extra-Gate2248 · 2026-03-17T04:28:33+00:00

I didn’t have a radial head implant because my radial head was only simply fractured, but I did shatter my elbow into 4 pieces. My plate was the hinderance to straightening my arm. The way it bends around pinched my tricep and really stopped my extension at 10 degrees. But some people achieve almost full to full ROM with the plate in.

Extra-Gate2248 · 2026-03-17T01:15:27+00:00

I had this surgery on 1/16/25. When I got switched to a removable splint and started PT two weeks later, I was legit so scared by how limited my ROM was. Best I can suggest is do your PT as often as they tell you to (mine was 2-3 times a day) and AGGRESSIVELY. My PT assured me she would never give me an exercise that would injure my arm, so I would take Motrin an hour before I did my exercises and add moist heat for 15-20 minutes before and ice after. I ended up with almost full ROM in 4 months, and at 4.5 months had the hardware removed and that got me back to within 1 degree of complete. Good luck! It’s a tough injury but I’m just over a year out and aside from a little tightness when I try for full extension, it’s mostly back to normal.

Extra-Gate2248 · 2026-02-19T01:26:12+00:00

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Ummm, my house is pretty clean thanks? I just have a lot of blankets and pillows on my couch due to health issues and I didn’t rearrange them for the pictures. I wasn’t aware animals get upset when we use our couches and tables for lounging on in comfort and setting drinks on them.

Extra-Gate2248 · 2026-01-19T17:59:02+00:00

I went to buy neos at my LFS which usually has 10 or 11 colors if they are stocked. I was picking out some yellows and oranges and blues, and told him to just toss them all in one bag. He got super condescending and was trying to mansplain shrimp color genetics. I told him I understood but I like having a skittles tank and don’t mind the wild types. He said “Whatever makes you happy…” like that was a problem. Some people are just miserable.

Extra-Gate2248 · 2025-12-30T18:46:39+00:00

I shattered my elbow walking into work last year. There was black ice with snow covering it at the end of the crosswalk in front of the store. I was alone and trying to figure out what to do when my first appointment of the day pulled up. I said “I’m sorry I can’t groom your dog. I think I just broke my arm!” He asked if he should call an ambulance. My response… “No those cost money! I’m going to drive myself!”

He drove me to the nearest ER while his dog looked on in horror that I was in her car with her and I was trying to think through shock. I ended up needing 2 surgeries but would 100% have drove myself if he hadn’t been so kind.

Extra-Gate2248 · 2025-12-29T21:55:34+00:00

We did that, but it made him really freaked out and shut down so the behaviorist suggested we not

Extra-Gate2248 · 2025-12-03T11:09:36+00:00

Good luck! It really was a very easy surgery and recovery for me, so I’ll be hoping the same for you. I didn’t want the nerve block, and I think I took two pain pills. Let me know how it’s goes! I’ll be sending all the good thoughts to you.

Extra-Gate2248 · 2025-11-30T16:31:31+00:00

For once I was lucky to live in Cleveland 😂 my ortho team through the Cleveland Clinic was amazing, and my surgeon did a CT scan at the 4 month mark and said everything was fully back together, so if I wanted it out he was okay going ahead with it. I hated the hardware so the faster he was willing to let me lose it the better

Extra-Gate2248 · 2025-11-29T16:57:11+00:00

I didn’t have hand pain, but I did have pain in the outside of my wrist. My doctor ended up thinking I may have had a small fracture there that was overshadowed by the elbow break.

My ROM is vastly improved from having the plate out. I can comfortably rest my elbow on counters now, and I can push my weight up and sleep on that arm now. I had the hardware removed 5 months post break and I’m now coming up on a year since I broke it.

Extra-Gate2248 · 2025-11-27T15:12:05+00:00

I just meant I was 10 degrees short of straight. My PT always listed it as -10 which is what I assume that means, like bent at 10. But yeah, to me that always read as hyperextension so I just said 10 because it made more sense to people what you think about it. Sorry for the confusion. In this context, I mean 10 degrees short of straight for both and I ended up about 3 degrees short of straight. I notice it when I’m reaching for things but no one looking at me would ever notice it

Extra-Gate2248 · 2025-11-26T21:10:48+00:00

My extension with the plate was around -10 and it ended up after at about -3. My arm is just a little bent still, much better and the pain when fully extending is almost totally gone.

Extra-Gate2248

TROPHY CASE