My son broke his tibia and fibula, is it safe to manually manipulate the fragment in place by hand?

My son recently broke his tibia and fibula in the lower part of his leg requiring extensive surgery that included utilization of steel plating and several screws. Afterwards, upon reviewing his post op x-rays, it was discovered that a large splinter from the back side of his fibula had separated from the main bone and was in essence floating in the surrounding tissue (see attached). In response to our concerns regarding the same, my son’s followup physician has advised him to manually manipulate the fragment in place by hand. Our concern is that doing so could possibly result in further damage to the surrounding tissue and prevent fusion to the main bone. Is this really a safe and soundly establish practice in regard to such injuries, or should we be considering looking for a second opinion?

1 Comment on “My son broke his tibia and fibula, is it safe to manually manipulate the fragment in place by hand?

  1. Hi.In my opinion manual manipulation is not recommended. I suggest that you take a second opinion.Manual manipulation may damage surrounding structures and tissue and may not be the ideal procedure.See another orthopaedician and discuss everything. Keep me posted.Take care!