Broken collar bone: Lance Armstrong down

It’s a bone that no-one thinks that much about unless you break it or you’re staring in the mirror and you think it sticks out too much: your collar bone. Today, Tour de France winner seven times over, Lance Armstrong, is thinking about his collar bone more than he ever did before, I’m sure.

We think we don’t use it very much. After all, it doesn’t bear our weight when we walk, it doesn’t help us lift heavy things – or does it? What exactly does the collar bone do?

The collar bone, or clavicle, does quite a bit. The  most important jobs are protection of the passageway between the neck and arm, which holds several important nerves and blood vessels, and support for your upper body, as well as  keeping your arms away to allow them to move freely.

Collar bones are most often broken in accidents, like bike crashes. It’s not a hard bone to break, especially among children. In fact, sometimes babies will break a collarbone during birth.

Signs and symptoms:

According to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons , signs of a broken collar bone are:

• Sagging shoulder (down and forward)
• Inability to lift the arm because of pain
• A grinding sensation if an attempt is made to raise the arm
• A deformity or “bump” over the fracture site

Cyclist Lance Armstrong

So, what’s in store for Lance Armstrong? Not cycling, I’m afraid. According to news reports, he crashed his bike in Spain earlier today and broke his right collar bone.

While it’s not usually difficult to recover from a broken collar bone, in some cases, as with Armstrong, surgery is needed so that adds to what needs to heal. The problem facing Armstrong is that he doesn’t have time if he wants to get back to Tour de France racing form. Although the article, Broken collarbone puts Lance Armstrong’s comeback in doubt , says that racers may return four weeks after breaking their collar bone, orthopedic surgeons don’t recommend a reeturn to sports until the bone has fully healed, usually about eight months.

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Images: Bauer-Griffen.com and Morguefile.com