#254 Difference in healing time of old fracture vs recent fracture

A runner and a listener to the podcast recently sent in a question regarding how long it takes to heal an old fracture versus a new fracture. There are many risk factors for developing problems with healing a broken bone. Each year there are about six million broken bones the United States. Somewhere between 5% and 10% of all of those fractures do not heal as quickly as we would hope and turn into what is called a fracture non-union or a delayed union. A “fracture non-union" is just what it sounds like. It means to the fractured pieces of bone did not unite. They did not get back together and the fracture just did not heal. A "delayed union" is a broken bone that isn't healing as quickly as we would expect. Today on the Doc On Run Podcast we're talking about the difference in healing time of an “old fracture” vs a “recent fracture.”