After an E.R. splint was applied, they put a temporary cast on me, then a permanent one. I sat around in the cast for several months, non-load-bearing. I used crutches to try and negotiate the "urban jungle" in 120℉ weather. I could visually tell that they'd fucked-up the casting and my leg was still twisted around unnaturally. They told me to take calcium supplements, so I did, and drank plenty of whole milk as well.
So eventually they prescribed me this quack-gadget, I call it. My father doesn't agree, being a DX-radio guy and a True Believer in medical technology. But this gadget was 100% quackery. The gadget was designed to "electronically stimulate" the bone growth in my leg. It was a black box, powered by rechargable battery, with a hook-and-loop strap to hold it in place. And it definitely generated electronic impulse signals. The RFI was bad enough to disconnect my 56K modem every time. So I could choose to go online and use the web, or I could choose this "quack therapy".
As far as I could tell, there was seemingly no valid mechanism of action for these fuckin' radio signals to "stimulate bone growth" in any meaningful way. But they made this thing because they could, and the insurance company, being Medicaid, agreed of its "Medical Necessity", and so you, the American taxpayer, you were ripped off for this quackery and other bullshit along the way.
Eventually the key to healing my leg was an internal fixation with a good old-fashioned titanium rod, as well as some clever cuts and buffs during the surgery. My orthopedic surgeon was an ebullient, intelligent fellow who definitely worked out and had an amazing physique. His assistant surgeon reported, over the phone (verbally with no written record) that they needed to break through a lot of calcium buildup [bone regrowth] as they reamed out the marrow to insert the fixating rod.
So yeah, my body had generated a lot of new "bone material" but unfortunately not in the right place to rejoin the two broken pieces of tibia. And the quackery was all for naught, IMHO.
Please, if you or your loved ones suffer from any brain or mental or behavioral disorder, do not get ECT, do not submit to TMS, do not let them put radio signals or magnetism or electricity anywhere near your body. This is not stuff that "heals" it is stuff that "profits", and the insurance companies are incestuously sleeping in the same filthy beds.
wglb•9mo ago