Broken left wrist.....how soon can i play?

November 8, 2010 at 08:08 PM ·

Ugh. If you were in the states, you'd just go to a sports medicine physical training regimen under your doctor's supervision. Rehabilitation is Critically important. Without it, the recovery from a break will Never be 100%. It isn't only the violin playing that is affected--nor should you focus only on the violin-playing motions and strengths. You really want to go through strength and range of motion rehabilitation fully, and add the violin playing to your activity. You would show your trainer what the violin position and activity involves and she'd advise you --actually this would probably happen with the chief trainer.

Remember, violin is an athletic endeavor.

November 8, 2010 at 11:24 PM ·

 Well, I don't think there is much of a way to soften the blow when it comes to breaks and casts. Having your arm out of action for so long in itself does damage and weakens the muscles. I had my right arm in a cast for an extensive amount of time just over a year ago and it is still not 100%. Although I didn't break it as such, the fact that it had been out of action for so long has caused that arm to become weaker. I always have to make sure I'm not over-doing it. If I ever feel the slightest pain emerging once more, I'll leave the playing to another time (and that kills me, but I would rather have a few days rest than months again).

It is such a shame too, you're a professional, so violin is obviously something you rely upon. Try to take it easy. Use simple exercises you'd teach any pupils when they first start, do scales a few times a day, make sure you're not doing massively brash virtuoso pieces for a while or any pieces with drastic position changes that will stretch your hand right around. Do little and often, and gradually build up the fine tuning you have in your wrist and hand once more. It will be tempting to dive straight back into everything you were doing before the break, but just stay back from it as that will cause more damage than you'd expect.

Good luck! Get better soon! 

November 9, 2010 at 04:12 AM ·

Catherine,

I'm sorry to hear about your wrist. I've been wondering whether or not to post on v.com about my injury but with your post I'll just tack on.

I injured my collarbone and fractured 4 ribs falling off my bicycle. No surgery, and no cast. It also happened about 5 weeks ago - October 5th. No one hit me, for some reason I lost control of my front wheel - and I consider myself quite a competent cyclist. I used to work as a bicycle messenger, have toured, and have even raced once.

Anyway, if anyone has any ideas about how one best spends ones time or practice idas for when their right arm is immobilized, I'd be curious to hear about it. Just today the pain has dramatically reduced in my collarbone. I've heard that that occurs at around the 6th week. For some reason, the ribs have been bothersome, but not really that bad. Everyone told me that rib injuries were particularly bad but that hasn't been the case for me.

I'm also curious if anyone knows the answer to: How soon can I play? From what I read on the internet I think it takes about 12 weeks total to fully resume activities. But I don't know if it's any different for the violin, or if itt's any diffferent for a left wrist versus a right collarbone. I've also heard that physical therapy is very important. I'm also doing something called Bowen Therapy right now, which feels great. I'd recommend it more strongly, but I dont know how my healing would compare with or without the Bowen Therapy.

November 9, 2010 at 04:21 AM ·

Hi Catherine,

I also broke my left wrist at the end of my junior year in high school and had it in a cast for 6 weeks (from the end of May thru early July).  When they removed the cast, my left arm looked like a chicken leg.  I'm sure yours will too.  In the beginning, I had a tough time rotating my left wrist enough to get the fingers comfortably over the fingerboard.  But by August (less than 2 months after getting the cast off), I auditioned for the local youth orchestra (MCYO) with the Mendelssohn violin concerto and got assistant concert master.  I was not 100%, but my playing was back to being relatively proficient.

I'm no physician, but I think it depends on the nature of the break, where it is and how much it affects your range of motion.  As for muscle atrophy, it is unavoidable but you should be able to recover from it fairly quickly.  I hope your recovery is as speedy as mine was. 

November 10, 2010 at 12:17 AM ·

Hi there Catherine, I’m very sorry about your break and playing professionally, that is truly difficult. 

I’m not a professional, but a student who plays every day and I broke my left arm just above the wrist last Christmas Day.  I learned 2 things out of my experience - one was, as Smiley said, I think it entirely depends on the nature of the break and it’s different in every case.  And the other was something I was completely naïve about being my first ‘actually broken’ bone – apparently soft tissue damage causes far more trouble than the break itself!  I’m glad to hear others here have had fairly quick healing and I really hope this is the case for you too.  For me the break healed nicely and quickly, but it was months before I had proper range of motion at all, let alone normal strength or dexterity.  The surrounding tissue was much slower to heal.  No one really talked about that!  I really, really expected once the cast was off I’d be ‘normal’ in a couple of weeks of strengthening.  Goof.

My cast was on for 8 weeks, a further 2 in a brace with ‘NO ATTEMPTING TO PLAY THE VIOLIN’ orders from my doctor.  After the cast was off I couldn’t even have come close to getting my left hand into playing position.  When I could, probably end of March, I could get some decent sound out of the E string and a bit on A and continued working until I could get to the G string, which was by far the worst.  That was probably May or June without it hurting in this position.  Vibrato is stiff and a little painful sometimes even now (but mine is baby vibrato, so maybe not so much to do with the breakJ).  There is absolutely nothing to say that your break will be this bad, but don’t push it and cause further damage.  It will probably be a gradual thing, although probably/hopefully not quite that long.

I had a great physiotherapist who had me show her, on my violin, the position my hand would need to be in so she could focus on certain motions, (but thoroughly went through full range of motion as has been mentioned already here).  The other thing I did was to try and keep the rest of me strong and continued kickboxing (carefully) obviously protecting my left arm with the help of my instructor.  It did help a general sense of strength and healing, maybe just power of suggestion??  Anyway, I was great amusement for my co-kickboxing ladies with my clumsiness and they all said I would end up with a really jacked up right arm and legsJ.

If you can speak to your doctor and ask if they can tell you as much about the break as possible, was it a clean break, if they feel it caused excessive soft tissue damage, that might give you some clues.  And physiotherapy as soon as possible!

For Terry, I thought about how to use my time while immobilized a lot.  I tried to practice bowing but I couldn’t hold the violin properly, propping it was ineffective because the angle was so unlike normal playing position that I didn’t think bowing a lot at a weird angle would be that helpful as a student and I’d end up learning something really strange!  (obviously wouldn’t work for your right arm, but would you be able to do any left hand exercises?)  I looked at a lot of music, studied it, went through little passages that I had trouble with in my head as I was going to sleep, talked to my teacher about different things I would start to play once healed.  I know that’s not that helpful, but was better than nothing.  Oh ya, and a violin app on my ipod.  Also, when I was trying to bow on my daughter’s cello for something to ease frustration, and couldn’t really hold onto anything properly on that either, I think it was Roland who suggested on this site something really odd involving coat hangers and duct tape.  Anyway, good for a laugh.

I think other posters have written some good advice, and I hope you both recover very quickly, but really don’t push yourselves.

November 12, 2010 at 01:58 AM ·

I just got done having surgery on my left wrist to remove a cyst caused by broken bones (yes - at one time I broke my wrist and small fragements were left in). I could have left things alone - but the cyst was restricting my movement over extended periods of time. After the operation - I had to wear a cast for four weeks. When it was removed - they tried to get me to wear a "flexible cast" and attend physical therapy. I said no to both - with good reason. The flexible cast restricts your movement - which is the opposite of what you want. You want to slowly move and rotate your wrist - even if it hurts a bit - to get muscles working up to speed again. I praticed my violin constantly - and it was a great help. It took me almost four weeks to be able to play all strings. The high e was the only string I could play the first week the cast was off. Then I got enough movement to play the A  - the second week. Then the third week I could turn my wrist enough to get over to the D string. Finally - the fourth week I was able to turn my wrist fully to get over to the G string!! I was delighted - it hurt a bit - but it was so exhilirating - that I practiced for hours. Playing the violin was great therapy - better than attending a physical therapist. You just have to stick with it and remember that wrist rotation may hurt. Don't push it - take it slowly - and eventually you will get there. It takes a while to build up your muscle strength to where it should be - you just have to have blind faith that it will happen for you. It will. Don't worry that you may not be able to. I had an x-ray of my wrist - and believe it or not - I'm missing all the bones at the left side of my wrist. But I'm still able to play. You will be able to do it...it just take time.

Jerome Bass

September 2, 2011 at 01:27 PM ·

I find these posts very useful. I had my cast off today (left distal radius fracture), and was told that I now have slight displacement, which I didn;t have before. While the doc did seem encouraged by playing violin as a therapy , I can't get anywhere near the position - early days of course. Frustrating with workshops and classes etc coming up, but really feel for the professionals amongst you.

September 2, 2011 at 05:58 PM ·

 I didn't read the original series, but I would urge you, strongly, to seek the help of a physical therapist, preferably musically trained, but at least sports trained.  That way you won't be as likely to make things worse.  Just because the cast is off does NOT mean the injury is fully healed.  Real healing takes up to a year, and although you'll be playing long before that, you need to go wisely through the brambles ahead.

September 10, 2011 at 06:29 PM ·

This is probably the best possible advice, as there are so many mixed messages across the whole of the medical profession about what to do and when. When the doctor took the cast off and said "now the hard work really begins" he was not kidding! In UK there is no real emphasis on physio afterwards, it seems to be something held in reserve in case of complication, but I have a private physio anyway, so will certainly be going to see him. In the meantime I decided that I will go to my pre booked week long tuition course, but mainly as an observer to keep the morale up and emerse myself in the music.Will be hard tho!

January 20, 2012 at 06:17 AM · I'm so sorry you broke your arm! There is a lot of good advice here.

I sustained a fracture of my distal radius (left arm/wrist, thumb side) in October 2011 and I want to encourage you that you CAN get back to wonderful playing again. Disclaimer: my health care situation is likely different from that of most musicians. I am a military spouse and had the access to a military hospital and therapy. I was told that surgery (a metal plate & screws) would give me the best result. My surgeon was a hand surgeon, soon to deploy to Afganistan, and I showed her what my wrist needed to do (using the other hand). This was an important conversation! She understood and planned my treatment accordingly. Following surgery, she had me rotate my wrist outward – with help from the other hand -- to the extreme thumb side (supination) and then to the pinky side (pronation) WHILE IN THE CAST. I thought she was crazy! It hurt like **** but now I know that this was a HUGE benefit to me. Some people do not get this range of motion back.

When the cast came off, I was assigned to the therapy team. I brought in my violin to show the therapist what I needed to do and she tailored my sessions to accomplish my goals. She had seen several guitar players in therapy, but I was her first violinist. In all, I had about four months of follow up Occupational Therapy (from the elbow down it’s called OT) that involved restoring range of motion to my wrist out/in (extension/flexion) and pivot left/right (think LH piano playing). I recommend taking Motrin/Aleve before your therapy sessions. In your home sessions, warm up your injured area with heat for 10-15 minutes before therapy so you get the greatest range of motion as you stretch the muscles.

These are the therapy moves that were the most restorative to me.

1) Ulnar deviation: with elbow on table, push w/RH to bend palm down toward table. Goal: top of hand nearly parallel to table. This is vital to playing in upper positions (think about it).

2) Supination: with forearm parallel to floor, rotate wrist to thumb side to go well beyond “flat table surface”. Violinists and violists need a few more degrees of rotation than the average person in order to play their instrument.

3) Stretch the fingers apart using rubber bands in various combinations of finger groups.

4) Play your instrument, starting in guitar position. The lowest string 4th finger is the hardest.

5) Grip strengthening. Get a hand strengthener (< $10) from the sporting goods department of “Megamart” and use it several times a day.

I was able to play in “guitar position” with my students 10 weeks after surgery and confidently play “in public” a month after that. Now, one year later, I have a tiny bit of stiffness, but I can play all the gigs I did before my injury.

Lessons learned: 1) be clear with every medical provider who treats you about the movements you need to regain; 2) get clear instructions on exercises you can do on your own to restore function and DO THEM.

Best wishes!

August 24, 2012 at 10:09 PM ·