The Snowboarder's Ankle Fracture

Snowboarding is a sport that has increased in popularity over the past several years due to popular names such as Shaun White and Kelly Clark. It is a sport that allows all of the adrenaline junkies out there to push themselves to new heights. With the ever growing variety of stunts and types of competition, it offers something for every personality. It is also a sport that has seen a wide variety of injuries. One of these is called the snowboarder’s fracture and is a break that occurs in one of the bones in your feet.

A snowboarder’s fracture occurs in the talus, which is one of the bones that help in forming your ankle. It attaches to the main bone in your leg and allows you to have the motions of flexion and extension. The part of the bone that breaks is on the outside of your foot near your ankle. When you are snowboarding, you use a rocking motion, from your heels to your toes, to help you with maintaining speed. When you turn though, you will often lean hard to the outside of your foot while leaning back onto your heels. This can cause a part of your talus to break. Depending on how much force is applied will determine if a small piece is broken off, a larger piece, or if the piece of bone shatters.

A person who has this type of injury will require imaging techniques such as X-Ray to determine how severe their injury is. Until you get to our office it is important to try and keep your ankle immobile. This can be done by using a brace or an ace bandage to hold your ankle in a stable position. In most cases, surgery will be necessary to repair the injury and reattach the fragment of bone. You will then require some time to recover where you have no weight on the foot that has been injured. This can be really difficult for people that lead such an active lifestyle, but in order for that bone to heal it is necessary to not put any stress on the bone. If you don’t follow these guidelines, you can end up with a much worse injury.

If you are a snowboarder that lives in the North Andover, Bradford, Methuen, Lowell or Lawrence Massachusetts area and you sustain an injury to your foot, please keep our office staff in mind. We would be more than happy to help you with your medical concerns and get you back out on the slopes as quickly as possible.