Hows it going guys. So I broke my wrist about 8 weeks ago, and at the 10 week mark I’ll finally be out of my cast. My wrist is going to be pretty weak and worthless after 10 weeks… Have any of you surfed with a wrist guard on? Can anyone recommend anything that might help? I also don’t want to ding up my board with the brace… So I’m not sure how to go about this… Any ideas?
Hi, i i’ve been there, twice… i broke my wrist and some bones on my hand, once snowboarding and once surfing.
I went surfing for the first time with one of those neoprene/velcro things with a metal piece inside that didn’t allow me to flex my wrist, so on take offs i put almost all my weight on the other hand, so no problems with that… just avoid late take offs and/or use a thicker board.
The problem came when i tried to paddle hard because it hurted really bad, and the worst pain when duck diving on thicker sets… So be easy on your padling and avoid duck diving thicker sets: use your leash (yea, some of you will throw rocks at me for saying this… i would do it also).
Take care of your injuries and you’ll be soon surfing again. Go surfing before you should and you’ll find yourself outside the water for a long, long time and, over that, you’ll have to hear your wife saying “i told you this would happen” eight times a day.
Coque.
Michael Ho won the 1982 Pipe Masters with a cast on his right arm.
Seriously…You are in for a lot of pain, but it is a good thing. Surfing is excellent physical therapy. Just take it easy in the beginning. I broke my finger a while back, and had a cast that held my wrist in place. When it came off it was impossible to move my wrist. It took a while for me to even consider surfing. When I finally got back in the water I used a rollerblading wrist guard. It hurt like hell, but I was able to paddle, and push up to stand. Duck diving was out of the question. I was amazed at how much better my wrist and fingers felt after a few surf sessions.
Thanks for the replies. I guess what I really need to do is talk to the doc about what risks there might be. I have a pretty high pain tollerance (I actually finished snowboarding the day I broke my wrist without knowing anything was wrong?) so I just want to make sure its only painful, not messing things up more. We shall see… I’d really love to be on my mountain bike again soon too, but thats going to be rough…
I’m with the guy who did it too. Surf, snowboard, and Mt. Bike. I had a wrist guard with plastic inserts for stiffness, top and bottom - as I recall I took the one out of the bottom/palm side, strapped it down good, and didin’t have a real problem… probably found surfing to be the least impacted, so go for it! Ha! Taylor.
Yeah, I figured surfing would be the least stress on my wrist to start out with. I think the main issue is going to be holding onto my board through duck diving, or turtle rolling if I take my longboard. The bone I broke, (scaphoid) is really linked to gripping with your hand, so that might be tough. I guess pushing up will be hard too. I’ve got a brand new board that I havn’t even slapped any wax on yet, just sitting and waiting for me… It’s an epoxy, so I don’t think dinging it with my wrist guard will be a problem, but I’m scared to find out. I’ll probably wait til I can ditch the guard to ride it… Bummer.
i had minor surgery on my wrist two weeks before going to costra rica, got the stitches out three days before leaving, i used a skate boarding wrist guard, took one of the metal bars out and pulled the velcro really snug and things were fine from there, i was a bit nervous at first but after a couple of days it was fine…IF you want to wait ttill your cast is gone and the wrist stronger, you can speed up the process by getting into the pool and swimming not fast but just back and forth and then ice ing you rwrist afterward to fight the pain and swelling and week or so of swimming will really strengthen the whoel mess up fast ----- have fun!
Funny…I broke my wrist snowboarding 7 weeks ago and got the cast off today. Wrist barely moves so am going to Physical Therapy tomorrow at noon. And I have a new board, untouched, too–my first shortboard, no less, custom made.
From what I have heard rebreaking the wrist now (which is still healing) would be VERY BAD. Definitely consult your doctor as to rehab…
Michael
Hey 805,
I’ve had good luck wearing a skate wrist guard, pulling the plastic guard out of the palm, and duct taping around it - wrapping around hand/palm to stiffen it and taping over velcro closures so the water doesn’t pull it off. Might work for you as well. When pushing to your feet, you may have to change your hand position on the deck to pushing off the rail but it works well. A word of caution though, you do have the tendency to jam fingers with it on if you’re not carefull…
Good luck on the recovery.
Well… The cast is off… And there’s no way in hell I’ll be surfing any time real soon… When I first got the cast off I could only move my wrist about 20 degrees in either direction, but its starting to loosen up. The problem is that my thumb was stuck in place with the cast too, so its weak and worthless. I can’t bend my wrist enough to push up off the deck, and my thumb is to weak for pushing up off the rail… Bummer. I guess its going to have to wait a bit longer…
i messed up my wrist pretty bad one summer just before a nice SE ground swell back in 02 due to a skateboarding accident…
the doctors didn’t find the break VIA the X-ray but i knew one was there… they didn’t soft cast me no nothin…
cause of this, i was able to surf but it was hard for me to stand up
so i looked around in the van i had and found a roll of duct tape…
it worked well…
i wrapped the tape sticky side out over lapping its self to make the initial cast
then i made a second wrap putting sticky side down… i think i made one or two more wraps after that…
i was able to surf and keep my wrist pain free for the most part…
and thats how a person with out health insurance fixes their wrist 
I like the duct tape idea. Thats certainly worth a try. I might combine that with the brace I have, and see how that goes. I think I am going to give it a week or so to at least get back my range of motion so I don’t pull anything. Right now my tendons are really tight and stretched, even when I am relaxing my hand. That seems like a recipe for messing up tendons and ligaments and things…
You might want to shave the hair around your wrist first. Tape + hair = pain.
An alternative to duct tape would be regular old athletic tap.
Good call on the shaving… My wrist got pretty hairy under that cast…
dude, thats why i put the duct tape sticky side up first…
that way it didn’t stick to the hair…
then wrap duct tape sticky side down
it works good for ya!
Hey Surfer805,
I just got my cast off three weeks ago (alpine snowboarding is my big winter sport) and have been working intensively with a pt. I figure it’s at least two more weeks of work before I get my mobility back enough to pop up. For now I can swim fine and am doing a lot of exercising, stretching, plus 2, 1/2 hour pt sessions per week. But when I got my cast off I could not move my wrist more than 3-5 deg. in any direction.
You will get your mobility back but if you push to hard you will really screw up your tendons, ligaments, and all the funky things that help your hand/wrist move. Do yourself a favor and put some time into PT and don’t get back in the water until you are ready!
If you injure your tendons/ligaments and permanently restrict your wrist motion, popping up will always be a big problem. Plus, your bone is probably not fully healed for another few weeks. You do not want to know what happens if you break the bone again, loose circulation and the bone dies (use your imagination.)
You may not feel like you have much mobility now but it will come back pretty quicly. My pt person says it can be up to a year before all symptoms/restrictions are gone.
Michael
Just boogie board.
You might find it to be a blast.
swim swim swim hydro therapy is the best , just don’t over do it --if it hurts too much, you did too much…take your time and it will lossen up and you’ll be fine
here’s what not to do:
I used to live in NYC late 90’s, and surfed lots in Jersey and Lawn Geiland. One day I was riding my bike to work and a ped stepped out in front…swerved, recovered too hard, and went over, right hand outside of bar-end. Thought I was OK until I saw my pinky finger–smashed in two, bone out. erk.
Operation three days later after swelling went down, put in two pins that were sticking out of my hand a little, then a wrist and hand cast. just fingers and thumb out…so i did a little probing…so doc, can I exercize?..what happens if it were to get just a little wet or sweaty or something? like in the shower?..Oh, he said, a little probably wouldn’t hurt, if it happens, you could clean it with a long swab and peroxide…
Here comes a hurricane. Summer of 98 or 99? the thing makes the turn 500 mi. or so east of fla. and begins to meander, pulling all the weather off the east coast. blue skies, 92 deg. and Manasquan has eight foot and glassy. I found a geriatric and med supply store on the east side, and found these cast-bags so people could take baths. they had everything, even full leg ones, all heavy yellow rubber, like kitchen gloves but thicker. I got one that rolled up tight just past my elbow. it had a big round end like a whoopee cushion, no fingers or anything…I wrapped my cast up in an ace bandage and a trash bag, taped that to my wrist, then stuffed the works in this yellow bulb looking thing, and taped it further up my arm. Paddling out would go stroke KaSplunk! stroke KaSploink, and to get up I had to use my fist–elbow up, thumb in, just as if I was punching the board. Kinda got the hang ogf it, and boy was it worth it–I’m quite sure on a normal day I would have gotten razzed hard, but the waves were so good, all i got were understanding nods…
three days of this, and it finally starts to throb. I went back in feigning bafflement, but I was sunburned head to toe. Doc takes off the cast, and one of the pins is infected…not bad, but enough…so he decides to pull it early, I was more than halfway through, and the other one could hold it from there…new cast goes on, no problemo. but that was it for the surfing ti’ll it came off…