You fall, catch yourself with your hand, and immediately know your wrist isn’t happy. It hurts. It swells. Maybe it bruises.
But after a few days, the swelling starts to improve. You can still wiggle your fingers and move your wrist a little, so you decide it probably isn’t broken. Unfortunately, none of those things rule out a fracture.
At Central Jersey Hand Surgery in Eatontown, Freehold, and Toms River, New Jersey, we see wrist fractures regularly, especially distal radius fractures near the wrist end of the forearm. Getting the right diagnosis and treatment early matters because a broken bone doesn’t simply need to heal. It needs to heal in the right position.
Here’s what can happen when it doesn’t.
Your body is remarkably good at repairing broken bones. The trouble is, it will try to heal them whether they’re properly aligned or not.
When a fractured bone heals in the wrong position, doctors call it a malunion. Once that happens, the shape and mechanics of your wrist may permanently change. You might notice that your wrist looks different, doesn’t bend or rotate as well as it once did, or simply doesn’t work the way it should.
Correcting a malunion later may require more complex treatment than properly aligning and stabilizing the original fracture would have required.
Think about everything your wrist does in a single day. You turn doorknobs, open jars, type, carry groceries, push yourself out of a chair, and rotate your hand to turn a key.
A poorly healed fracture can change how the bones and joints move together, leaving you with stiffness, reduced range of motion, or weaker grip strength.
Those limitations can be particularly frustrating when they interfere with your work, hobbies, or ability to perform ordinary tasks independently.
A wrist is much more than a collection of bones. Ligaments, tendons, nerves, cartilage, and joints all work together in a remarkably compact space. A fracture that changes the alignment of the wrist can alter how forces move through the surrounding structures.
Over time, abnormal mechanics may place excess stress on parts of the wrist that weren’t designed to carry it. That’s one reason the consequences of a poorly healed fracture may extend well beyond the original break.
You may think the danger has passed once the fracture stops hurting, but some consequences take much longer to appear.
If a fracture extends into the joint or heals with an uneven joint surface, the cartilage may experience abnormal wear. Over time, that damage can contribute to post-traumatic arthritis. The result may be chronic stiffness, swelling, aching, and reduced function months or even years after the original injury.
Proper early treatment aims not only to heal today’s fracture but also to preserve the healthiest possible joint mechanics for the future.
One of the biggest mistakes you can make is assuming that if you can move your wrist, it isn’t broken. Some wrist fractures aren’t dramatically obvious. You may have swelling and tenderness without a visible deformity, and you may still be able to move your hand.
The only reliable way to know what happened is to have the injury properly evaluated. Diagnostic imaging can confirm a fracture and show your doctor where the bone broke, whether the pieces remain aligned, and whether the joint is involved.
Those details determine what happens next.
At Central Jersey Hand Surgery, we tailor treatment to the type and severity of your fracture. A stable or hairline fracture may need only a splint or cast while it heals. Some displaced fractures can be realigned without surgery.
More complex fractures may require surgical treatment to restore proper alignment and stabilize the bone. Our specialists use advanced techniques, including volar plate fixation when appropriate, to help restore the wrist’s anatomy and function.
After the bone heals, occupational or physical therapy may help you regain motion, strength, and function.
If you fall on an outstretched hand or otherwise injure your wrist and develop significant pain, swelling, bruising, tenderness, or deformity, don’t rely on your ability to move it as proof that nothing is broken.
If you suspect you’ve fractured your wrist, call Central Jersey Hand Surgery to schedule an evaluation. Not every wrist fracture requires surgery, but they all need expert medical attention.
