Did a and e miss my arm fracture?

[Woeismethischristmas]

Slipped and fell last week on black ice pulling a wheelie bin which shoved into my arm after I fell. Bad fracture radiusat wrist had to be repaired surgically and a plate inserted. Lots of bruising and swelling from elbow to fingers. As the bruising and swelling has gone down the midpoint of theulnahas become hugely painful and I can feel it through my heavy duty painkillers.Sort of feel like an additional break would have been spotted before on x ray but Jesus it really hurts. I guess what I'm asking is it possible they missed a more minor fracture because there was a bigger one?

8t is possible, i fell years ago, had x-ray, was told it was baly bruised and sprained etc .two weeks later hospital called me to go back, turned out there was a chip and a fracture (elbow) and it had only been noticed by someone taking another look at my x-ray and seeing what the first person missed originally... I'd been in pain the whole time but assuming it was just sprained...

So yes its possible

It’s possible, yes.

To back to hospital op

Ugh was hoping it'd be a firm no hate the idea of interrupting Christmas with a trip to hospital. I think I might morphine myself off to sleep and call the ward or 111 and try and figure it out tomorrow.

Can you move your fingers, and if you squeeze your nail beds, does the colour come back within 2 seconds. Are your finders pink and not dusky.
If any of the above apply, you must go to A&E now. Do not wait. As it could be. A rare complication called compartment syndrome.
Where the soft tissues and muscles swell and there is no room under the cast.

Can move fingers not actually wear in a cast as when you get a plate they just put thick bandage on.

I was a radiographer. If only a wrist fracture was suspected then the original X-ray may not even have included the mid-point of the ulna, assuming you didn’t have pain in that area at the time of injury.

The pain in my wrist was overwhelming so was given intravenous morphine as soon as they could get a line in it didn't hurt at the time I'm thinking that swelling and rest was stabilising it and now isn't can't get the kids out of bed in the middle of the night at Christmas though

Absolutely... swelling can compress the fracture. Actually more likely to see smaller fractures on an X-ray a week or two later once swelling goes down. Especially if scaphoid process (base of thumb) involved. (My son is an expert at injuring this as he thinks he is much more talented on his skateboard than he really is. Have been a frequent flyer in xray in the lady 18 months 🙄)

Yes they can absolutely miss things.
One thing I would say though is I sprained my wrist last year and Christ was it painful. I was 100% convinced I had broken a bone. But mercifully, it was just tendons/ligaments etc.
If you fell hard enough to break a bone, you may have torn ligaments/tendons. Painful as hell and takes 6 weeks to heal (a bone takes about 12 weeks, so that's good).
It's a pain in the ass being out of action.

I also had a wrist bandage thing on to keep my wrist stable. My fingers were out.

I broke my elbow a few years ago and they mentioned a healed break in my wrist. I injured the wrist skating when I was 15 (20 years previous) but was told at the time it was just sprained. So yeah, things get missed.