Skiing after broken wrist????????

Hi Laura,
I work as an orthopaedic theatre nurse in the North East of England. I would try and get in touch with your son's ortho consultant well in advance of the trip and explain the situation. This means you aren't waiting until the day of cast removal to make your decision as to whether to go or not. His/her secretary can probably arrange an earlier appointment than you already have if you explain the situation to them. If the surgeon agrees he should be ok for the trip he will be able to arrange for a removable splint to be made through appliances or occupational therapy or may advise putting him in a lightweight scotchcast for the trip.
All i would say is make sure you take plenty of paracetamol and an inflammatory such as brufen with you and give him regular doses of both whether he is in pain or not. If he is in a cast his hand may well swell up after a day or so of skiing. This is where a removable moulded splint may be of more use as it can be removed on an evening and his arm rested in a sling to allow for swelling. It will also be useful to take a sling with you to rest his arm in when he isn't skiing.
At the end of the day i would go with your surgeons decision. I can't comment much further as i don't know how old the injury is or what type of fracture it is.
Hope this helps a little. Good luck.

Thanks so much everyone, all very helpful, will speak to consultant and although I'm sure he wouldn't wave us off at the airport, hopefully it may be a risk worth taking. Only other thought do you tell the insurance company anyway or just keep quiet and hope you dont need them?

Can he not have the cast taken off when you come back from the holiday. All the children I have known at school (and my son) seemed to be able to use their arm/hand perfectly normally by the time they were due to have thier casts off. In fact my son went back to work soon after having his wrist put in plaster, he is a plumber.

If it was me, I'd tell the insurers, in case they found about it and then tried to say the insurance for the rest of you, for something else, was invalid - like when you die of heart attack and they refuse to pay out on your life insurance to your family because you forgot to tell them you'd once had a pimple on your nose (slight exageration I know).

If you don't need the insurance then telling them won't make any difference, and if you do need it they'd be bound to find out.

Ally

Apologies for reviving a SUPER old post but... what happened with this in the end? I'm in a similar position - broke a bone in my hand and will be 5 weeks post surgery to pin it back into place by the time of my ski trip. I don't have a cast, but have been warned that the pins they have put in aren't strong like they would be in a leg, they're just enough to hold the break in place while it heals. Surgeon was very vague - basically wouldn't advise me either way about whether to ski or not, seemed to just be covering his back.

I'm 26 and fit and active, so expect it will heal pretty fast, and I'm looking into suitable wrist guards to help with protection.... Here's that post if you're interested: https://www.j2ski.com/ski-chat-forum/posts/list/0/15694.page#145571

My daughter broke her hand playing rugby just before our ski trip. Her hand physio made a special splint especially for her with the fingers free and she skied one handed. We didn't say anything to the insurance company and took the risk. We avoided drag lifts but she managed everything else fine. Hers wasn't pinned which was probably worse and more painful. The doctor in London wanted to pin it but when she said she lived in Dorset he said to see the surgeons down here. They couldn't make their minds up for weeks so it didn't get operated on. Probably would have healed sooner :(

If plaster is off is technically not broken anymore so what is issue? Am not sure hurting your hand/wrist is something that happens when skiing (I have fallen in car park before :-( ), although perhaps a wrist guard and mittens would help. Mittens will prevent them holding ski pole too tight which is both not required and tiring. Of course standard practice of not using pole loops would help although using these is much more likely to result in a shoulder or pectoral injury than affect the wrist/hand.