Is it unusual to have no swelling or bruises with a fractured bone?!
Question: I yesterday I went to the ER with terrible pain in my elbow. At first they just thought that I was over reacting since it had been a few hours and there was no swelling or brusing, but they took x-rays anyway. And sure enough my elbow was fractured. I am now in a cast for a while but I was wondering is it common to have a fracture but no other symptoms besides pain and inability to move the broken area?
Answers: I yesterday I went to the ER with terrible pain in my elbow. At first they just thought that I was over reacting since it had been a few hours and there was no swelling or brusing, but they took x-rays anyway. And sure enough my elbow was fractured. I am now in a cast for a while but I was wondering is it common to have a fracture but no other symptoms besides pain and inability to move the broken area?
No, not at all. It depends on how the fracture happened. If the fracture was caused by hitting your elbow, the hitting would cause a bruise. If the fracture was caused due to non-trauma stress on the joint, then a bruise would likely not result. As for swelling, swelling occurs to muscle and tissue - not to bones. So if the bone is the only thing affected, then the surrounding tissue and muslce (though there isn't much muscle on an elbow) would not swell.
Fairly common actually.
definitely not unusual, a fracture is a very traumatic event for the body to go through which almost always has bruising, swelling, and of course pain.
when i smashed my shoulder...there were no marks no swelling no bruises...took 5 hours of surgery to fix it...