As many of my readers are well aware by now I am in a cast with a broken wrist after a recent bicycle crash. This is my first time in a cast and it has taught me some valuable things I want to impart to you.
If your cast gets wet it will smell bad, do whatever you can to prevent this. Many of these tips apply directly to that.
1. If the padding starts to wear down and you feel chaffing get some cloth tape and tape over the area that is bothering you, perhaps even tape some cotton balls there for more padding if needed.
2. When showering use a bread bag or a similar small plastic bag to cover the cast, seal it off with a rubber band; I prefer the thicker bands that come on broccoli.
3. If your cast does get wet dry it as quickly as possible with a blow-dryer held at a far enough distance where it won’t burn your skin or melt the cast.
4. If your cast does begin to smell bad use essential oils to mitigate the smell. I’ve been using lavender and grapefruit, one application of oil would last a day or two.
5. This one is obvious but needed, Don’t take your cast off for any reason!
The rest are not specifically cast related but are sound advice to heal broken bones fast based off all the studies I read.
6. Give up cigarette smoking, nicotine slows bone healing; no studies cover cannabis smoking and I offer myself up as a case study.
7. Stop drinking (I wish the doctor mentioned this one).
8. Eat a diet rich in dairy protein/calcium, dark green leafy vegetables, beans, citrus (oranges specifically), apples. Your goal is to maximize your intake of: silicon, copper, iron, and other minerals; Vitamin D, C (including Quercetin), B complex, and the rest. Bones are make up primarily of spongy protein and calcium with mineral pockets layered throughout. Also for healing most soft tissue/bone injuries check out glucosamine chondroitin, this stuff works wonders.
9. DO NOT USE NSAIDs like ibuprofen! Take aspirin or acetaminophen instead. Research shows that NSAIDs can slow bone healing. I wish I knew this a month ago before taking ibuprofen daily.
I get the cast off on January 2nd if all goes well in my xrays, until then I’ll have to wait and see.
Well Suited For Life 
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Hi, I’m Sasha and I’m in a cast at the moment I’ve had a broken wrist for 5 weeks and I’m hoping when it comes off on Thursday it will finally be better so I can go on holiday. These life hacks are really helpful and I’m always eager to find more
Thank you x
Glad to hear you found them helpful, and happier still to hear your cast is coming off, that is a great feeling.
Hi and thanks for your help today tips.
I stumbled upon your site while looking for ways to make my life easier as I recover from a humeral fracture. I was concerned enough about your last point to do some quick research, given that my doctor prescribed Motrin 800 for the pain.
What I found is that the jury is still out on whether nsaid’s do indeed inhibit bone fracture healing. See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3259713/#!po=21.7949, which is a comprehensive review of all of the studies of the subject. What they found is that the studies are contradictory, with some finding a negative impact and others finding no impact at all.
I guess that counsels caution, but not necessarily a blanket rejection of nsaid’s, given that the most likely alternatives, opioids or just enduring the pain, each have their own drawbacks.
I just thought I should share…
Thanks again.
The key word in your comment is “most,” most of the NSAID alternatives have bigger drawbacks, but not cannabis. Cannabis, specifically CBD, has been shown in non-human studies to speed bone healing. Cannabis also is a method of pain regulation that has not been shown to have any negative impacts on bone healing. The one question I had for my doctors that they could not answer was regarding smoked cannabis. Tobacco smoking has been shown to inhibit bone growth and they were unable to answer my query on if that is due to the nicotine or due to the inhalation of smoke. my best advice would be to avoid smoking cannabis and go for edibles or tinctures, those worked great for me during my recovery.