Any orthopods (nurse or Dr) out there....

[Ghoulfriend]

....this is embarrassing as I was an orthopaedic nurse 10 years ago so forgive me for being a bit rusty!

DD (7) fell off her bike this afternoon onto her outstretched arm. She now has "snuff box" tenderness. There's no visual swelling but pain, she just put her hand down to get into bed and flinched. I am wondering about a scaphoid fracture - what do you think? Xray in the morning? Not that it can always be seen of course but I'm not sure what else to do!

Bump

Its been a couple of years since I did Minor injuries stuff, but I seem to remember that the scaphoid is not really formed til around age 12? Because of this I was not allowed to XRay them in young children, but certainly sent older folks off for xray of the scaphoid area. If there was any doubt they would be plastered for around 10 days and then be re xrayed as the fracture took that time to show up. Have found this regarding ossification of the scaphoid:-
Skeletal Maturity
Ossification of the scaphoid begins between age 5 to
6 years and is complete between age 13 to 15 years.
Before ossification is complete, the scaphoid is almost
entirely cartilaginous. Throughout this ossification period,
fractures of the scaphoid are less common.

A fall onto an outstretched hand may cause other fractures though so dont discount them. Also some docs still xray scaphoids in young children. Its all quite tbh

Thanks weakandmilky, that's really helpful. She's asleep now, I will see what she's like in the morning but I think it's unlikely to be broken esp after reading your post. Have spoken to DH (away of course when these things happen) who's a GP and he agrees with you!