Bone Recovery 101: Tips to Heal Broken Bones Faster

By Your Health Magazine

Breaking a bone might give you the most intense pain of your life. However, for all that trauma and discomfort, what follows when you wait for your bone to heal is pretty uneventful. It’s frustratingly slow and can sometimes feel like watching paint dry.

Recovery can take anywhere from a few months for simple fractures and up to a year for more complex injuries. Your body works to lay down new bone where you were injured, which hardens for weeks until you get a strong, newly healed bone.

Everybody has their own bone healing timeline, which depends on factors like your age, vices, and how bad the accident was that led to your broken bone. However, you can help speed up that healing process by changing some lifestyle and nutrition habits. Here are tips for promoting bone healing fast, so you can get back to enjoying life without a cast or brace.

Stop Smoking and Drinking Immediately

Research has shown that people who smoke have a more challenging time healing fractured bones than those who don’t. Smoking can reduce your blood flow, significantly decreasing your bone’s absorption of vitamins and nutrients, leading to a slower healing time.

Quitting smoking can be difficult, but it’s worth it in the end if you want fast bone healing. There are other benefits as well, such as healthier lungs and a stronger heart. The same goes for drinking alcohol, which can slow down calcium absorption and weaken new bone tissue. Try your best to set boundaries with alcohol, especially in the first few weeks of recovery, when your body is creating new bones.

Maintain a Healthy Diet Rich in Protein

Nutrition plays a massive role when your body is recovering from injury. It’s pertinent to stop eating inflammatory foods, like processed meats and sugary snacks, which can delay the healing process. Instead, eat healthy meals with lots of vegetables and lean meats.

It’s especially important to up your protein intake while you recover from a broken bone. Protein makes up 50% of the volume of a human bone. If you want fast bone tissue regeneration, stock up your pantry with protein-rich foods such as eggs, beans, lentils, chicken breast, beef, fatty fish, soy products, Greek yogurt, almonds, and more. You can even munch on protein bars or chug some protein shakes if you don’t feel like having a huge meal.

Get Enough Calcium and Vitamin D

Calcium and vitamin D are the vitamins and minerals most associated with proper bone healing. Calcium strengthens bones and helps speed up bone regeneration. Meanwhile, vitamin D helps your body absorb calcium faster. Together, they make for an incredibly effective strategy for fast recovery.

Incorporate calcium-rich foods into your diet, including cheese, yogurt, almonds, sardines, cow’s milk, and leafy green vegetables. Spend a few minutes of your day under the sun for your daily dose of vitamin D. You can also buy calcium and vitamin D supplements to boost your intake of these nutrients fast.

Follow Your Doctor’s Orders

After your surgery or treatment, your doctor will most likely instruct you on how to properly stabilize your broken bone as it heals. Most commonly, you might be required to wear a cast or brace on your affected limbs.

Follow every instruction your doctor gives you about these. Don’t take them off or loosen them, even if they’re uncomfortable. The longer your broken bone is held together and stabilized, the faster and more properly it can heal. Casts and braces also help prevent common complications of broken bones, like misalignment. Your doctor might also provide orders about immobilization. Avoid all unnecessary movement according to these instructions, like carrying heavy things, until your bone is fully healed.

Rehabilitate With Low-Impact Physical Therapy

At your doctor’s green light in the later phase of your bone recovery, you can strengthen your healing bone by doing gentle, low-impact exercises. A physical therapist can guide you on the most beneficial ones for your case.

Light exercise with professional supervision can help wake up your muscles and prevent stiffness in the affected area. It also boosts blood flow, allowing your injured bone to get as many nutrients as needed. Think of it like easing your limbs back into moving as you enter the final stages of your bone healing journey.

Get the Right Amount of Sleep

Your body does its best healing and repairing when you’re in a deep sleep. It’s when bone regeneration peaks and also allows you to rest after a tiring day of caring for your broken bones. Try to get about seven to nine hours of sleep every night while you recover. That way, you can be sure you’re getting deep, high-quality sleep that can help with your healing process.

Optimize your sleeping environment by investing in comfortable bedding and pillows. You can also listen to soothing music to get into a relaxed mindset and fall asleep faster. Remember to keep the parts of your body with broken bones elevated to limit accidental movements throughout the night.

Attend Every Check-Up

Even if you think you’re healing well, try not to miss any of the check-ups your doctor has scheduled for you during your recovery period. Regularly meeting with your doctor allows them to monitor your progress according to your treatment plan. Follow-up x-rays and tests also give them a chance to catch any complications early on so that they can be properly addressed.

A follow-up check-up is also the time to ask your doctor any questions and concerns you have about your broken bones. Ask them what activities or chores you’re allowed to do at that point of your healing journey. That way, you can be sure that every move you make helps you heal faster.

Endnote

When you break or fracture a bone, your body knows exactly what to do to repair itself. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t give it an extra push to hasten the healing process. From diet to sleep to changing some of your lifestyle habits, there’s a lot you can do to promote faster bone healing. Before you know it, you’ll be out of that cast and moving with ease again.