Please share your dds injury and recovery story with lessons learned.

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Jul 16, 2013
4,659
113
Pennsylvania
DD has had her share of injuries over the years. Some softball related, some not. I will just highlight a few...

*Broken bone in her foot that occurred playing basketball.
*Green stick fracture of her left collar bone that occurred ice skating.
*Broken left pinky finger that occurred playing softball. She was a 13 year old playing 16u fall ball. The pitcher let one get away from her that looked like it was going to drill DD in the ribs. She took her left hand off the bat handle in an attempt to catch the ball (seriously...). Ended up with a broken finger...
*Golfer's elbow. This prevented her from pitching for approximately 2 months. She then moved on to wearing a support band. She wore that for approximately 18 months. Has been fine now for 2 years.
*Shoulder issues. She has several... After an MRI, a doctor informed her that she may have a labral tear in her throwing shoulder, but the MRI was inconclusive. The only way to know for sure was to operate. She visited a surgeon who agreed with the initial doctor, but isn't convinced there is a tear. She was scheduled for PT and ultimately a cortisone shot. She feels much better now, but realizes she will probably need surgery at some point in the future.

She has been active in sports since she was 5, and has had her share of office visits. She has had several great experiences with PT professionals and has decided to choose that as her future career. She is currently playing college ball and studying to become a Physical Therapist. So far she really enjoys it.
 
Feb 3, 2016
502
43
Lesson not learned yet.

Know a great kid that's been physically hurting for 2 years. Sore back, sore knee's, sore wrists and ankles. Average softball player but has so much potential to be a really great player.

She competes in Gymnastics and is at the lowest level of competition but loves it. Been competing in Gymnastics for like 6+ years.

Her Mom wants her to keep doing it eventhough it's physically compromising her daughter's health.

That Kiddo landed on her ankle wrong and jacked it up bad. She received an MRI and still in a boot for over a month so far.

I ask myself why her parents would let a kid continue to cripple her body and possibly jeopardize her long term health.

In 10u the coaches nicknamed her "Granny" because she couldn't always move well at practice because she was always beat up. :(

Sent from my SM-G935P using Tapatalk
 
Jul 29, 2016
231
43
My daughter is a catcher, so she walks around with the standard hallmarks of that position - namely multiple bruises all over her body. She wears them with pride, and is morbidly thrilled when she can see the seams of the ball in her bruise. I remember I was in an exam room with her at a doctor's appointment, and she was wearing gym shorts. The nurse whispered something to her, and my daughter shook her head and laughed saying "I'm a catcher" to which the nurse responded "Oh - okay." I later learned that she was whispering to my daughter about her bruises and asking if she wanted to talk about how she got them.

But we've had other injuries that are more serious. A couple of years ago, she developed "thrower's shoulder" (biceps-tendon/rotator-cuff tendinitis). She got to have her first MRI (with contrast) for that one. It was especially tough because she was put on "no overhand throwing" orders right as we were gearing up for travel tryouts. Coaches just aren't interested in catchers if they can't see them throw.

We also had a broken finger - and I honestly can't remember whether that was in her glove hand or throwing hand. That was before she really committed to playing, so we were on a B-level team at the time that only played about one tournament per month.

This year she had a stress fracture in one of her metatarsals - so another MRI. That led to a boot for about seven weeks. It hit in the dead of winter over Christmas break, so time away from softball was limited.

Lessons learned - there are many of them. First, stretching before playing or working out is hugely important. Our daughter continues to think she's bullet proof even though she's had two serious injuries and countless minor injuries. Also once you've developed soreness, it'll probably be a problem forever which makes stretching all that much more important. Also, throwing mechanics are super-important. Our daughter's shoulder issues were most likely the result of a weird arm position when she's throwing. Focusing on that when she was still in 10U would've prevented lots of hiccups in 14U.

I've also learned that MRIs cost between $3-5,000 if you don't have insurance. We do, thank God.

Finally, I've learned that there's a cream called Arnicare (search for it on Amazon) that will speed up the healing of bruises significantly. A college pitcher who took a line drive in the face told me about it.
 
Aug 29, 2018
83
8
My dd is now in a cast for 3 weeks for her stress fracture. The boot and modified activity didn’t heal it so I put her in a cast to force her to rest it. This injury has been dragging on since October. I don’t care that it’s interfering with the beginning of softball season. I don’t want her running until she has no pain. It’s not worth it at this age (almost 11) to not heal properly. Nobody’s offering her a 10m contract to play softball.
 

softgabby

Gear Empress
Mar 10, 2016
1,073
83
Just behind home plate
My daughter is a catcher, so she walks around with the standard hallmarks of that position - namely multiple bruises all over her body. She wears them with pride, and is morbidly thrilled when she can see the seams of the ball in her bruise. I remember I was in an exam room with her at a doctor's appointment, and she was wearing gym shorts. The nurse whispered something to her, and my daughter shook her head and laughed saying "I'm a catcher" to which the nurse responded "Oh - okay." I later learned that she was whispering to my daughter about her bruises and asking if she wanted to talk about how she got them.

I'm a catcher much like your daughter and I had this same thing happen to me over the fall. It was in early October and we had gotten done playing in a tournament (we finished in 3rd place) and I was wearing shorts and a tank top to Target along with my just turned 16 year old sister. With being a catcher, I have very visible bruises of course. We go in and I get Icy-Hot for in my cheer and softball bags, beef and bacon jerky as well as ranch flavored sunflower seeds since I had just had my braces taken off, some hair accessories, makeup brushes, protein powder and some groceries for mom. I had forgotten that I had bruises on my body from playing softball and some of them were pretty fresh and gnarly looking especially a few where I took foul balls off of my thighs and the edges of my chest protector on my abdomen. My sister and I grabbed the stuff we needed as well as some tea to drink on the way home. We were walking out of the store heading to my Jeep when I hear someone screaming to get our attention and we didn't stop until we got to my Jeep when the woman stopped us. We learn she is a social worker with the local CPS and she saw my bruises and thought we were being abused at home. She was actually wanting to get us out of the house and follow us home so she could confront our parents. I explain to her that I play softball and am a cheerleader and the bruises are from participating in sports. My sister is trying to back what I am saying but the social worker isn't believing us. I tell her to follow us home because I have almond milk and ice cream in the car that needs to get in the refrigerator and freezer. She follows us home to which I see a police car join us which I figure she called a cop to follow us incase my parents were to get violent thinking I'm being abused or something like that. The train of us arrive at home and the social worker gets out with the cops to confront my parents. My parents tell them the same thing my sister and I told them and I also call up a couple of my teammates on Skype and they all tell the same story my sister and I did. Got us out of having to go into the foster care system.
 

softgabby

Gear Empress
Mar 10, 2016
1,073
83
Just behind home plate
I've been playing in organized sports since I was 6 years old along with being a bit of a tomboy and very much accident prone. So...I've had my fair share of injuries in my nearly 18 years of life. Multiple broken fingers from just being clumsy as well as from playing basketball and field hockey, broke my nose at home and most recently from cheerleading, sprained my ankle, had 2 concussions (one from softball and the other from cheerleading), broke my elbow, sprained the ligaments in my knee, pulled muscle in my back, broken hand, endometriosis and had a stress fracture in my foot.

My worst injury as far as waiting to return to competition was my concussions. When I broke my elbow, hand and foot or some of my other injuries, I could at least learn from my coaches about what I could do to improve my game, cheer on my teammates or assist coaches or other adults associated with the team. When I had my concussions, I could do nothing but lay around and listen to music, audio books or podcasts. It sucked because I had to rely on others when I needed something. I couldn't get out of bed to get a drink or something to eat. Everyone had to do for me. Worse, I couldn't be at the softball fields or at basketball when it happened at cheer.
 

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