After enduring “constant pain for years,” a man in Washington was shocked to learn he had been living with a “broken wrist for 8 years.” He reportedly suffered a scaphoid fracture in a car accident nearly a decade ago, but says the injury was missed by the doctor at the time. Thousands of Reddit users were stunned that someone could live with such a serious, untreated injury for so long.
According to his posts on r/Orthopedics and r/mildlyinfuriating, Reddit user mynewjourney2425 fractured his tibia and fibula in a car accident, but medical staff apparently never examined his wrist. “It’s been intermittently painful ever since,” he wrote, explaining that gripping objects the “wrong way” can leave his hand unusable for an entire day.
The Injured Man Claims He Believed It Was Tendon Damage This Whole Time
At first, mynewjourney2425 assumed the pain was chronic tendon damage caused by the accident. Eventually, however, it became so unbearable that he went in for an X-ray to find out what was really wrong—only to discover that his wrist had been broken all along. “It must have gotten much worse, because I don’t know how a doctor misses THAT,” he exclaimed. Several commenters shared similar injury experiences, though few could understand how he had gone eight years without having his wrist properly examined.
“How does someone go eight years without noticing broken bones? You would have known within eight seconds,” one Redditor wrote in disbelief. Another commenter, who claimed to work in orthopedics, noted that fractures can sometimes be easy to miss and that multiple follow-up screenings may have detected the scaphoid fracture years earlier. Unfortunately, the OP said they had no insurance and chose to ignore the injury, assuming it was simply a tendon issue.
Years later, this fracture may have progressed to pseudoarthrosis, also known as nonunion, a condition in which the bone fails to heal properly or rejoin as intended. According to spine surgeon Matthew Colman, mynewjourney2425 may require bone grafting or other advanced procedures to treat the condition effectively.
Physical pain, regardless of where it occurs in the body, is a signal that something needs attention. While having a “high pain tolerance” may be viewed as a point of pride, physical therapists at Battle Born Health caution that ignoring pain can lead to serious—and potentially permanent—damage from an untreated injury.
