Broken leg
Overview
Get medical advice as soon as possible if you think you've broken your leg.
Symptoms
A broken leg often happens after a serious accident like a car crash. You may have broken your leg if you've injured it and it's: painful, swollen and bruiseddifficult to moveshorter, twisted or bentmaking a grating noise (if the ends of the broken bones rub together) If the break is severe, you may have a wound with the bone sticking out. It can sometimes be hard to tell if a bone is broken. You'll probably need anX-ray.
Treatment
Treatment for a broken leg depends on the type of break and how bad it is. Treatments can include: rest for a stress fracture – you'll need to avoid the activity that caused the fracture and take the weight off it by using crutches or wearing a padded boota cast to keep your leg still and hold the bones in place while they healsurgery – for serious breaks, plates, rods or screws may be used to keep the bones in position while they heala weight and pulley (traction) to pull the bone back into place – this is often used to treat small children with a broken thigh bone
Prevention
Things you can do to help lower your chances of breaking your leg include: wearing the right shoes and taking enough rest time if you do a lot of runningeating a healthy dietthat includes protein, calcium and vitamin D (this is particularly important forpreventing osteoporosisin women after the menopause)trying to preventfallsby making sure rooms and staircases are well lit, using non-slip mats and doingstrength exercisesandbalance exercises
When to see a doctor
If you think you've broken your leg, there are some things you can do while waiting to see a doctor. You should: avoid moving your leg or putting weight on itavoid raising your legput some padding, such as clothing or a blanket, around the leg to support itstop any bleeding – put pressure on the wound using a clean cloth or dressinguse painkillers, such asparacetamol, to help with the painavoid eating or drinking in case you need surgery