Non union fracture found 4/5yrs on

[youlemming]

OH turned his ankle in a rugby game 4-5yrs ago, the day after he couldn't weigh bare so it was X-rayed and told soft tissue so ice and elevate.
It's never been right since and often swells up after any kind of activity, finally after an episode of cellulitis that turned to sepsis its been looked into and found to have a fractured fibula that never healed.
Now waiting to hear from the consultant again who ordered the new xrays.
Anyone have any experience of this and what was the course of action.
Does it mean surgery?

Ouch your poor dh. I don't know the answer to your question but a si ilar thing happened to my dh. He was playing football with a couple of blokes on our street and the kids (We lived near a green) and he went down a pot hole and felt something snap. Xrays and hospital said it was ligament damage rest elevate etc. Couple of years later he was at work and it just went again from nowhere went to hospital and they said when did you fracture your ankle? Dh said never as far as I know. Turns out it was fractured and it hasn't healed correctly. It's not awful but not right. They offered him either leave it and carry on as you are or they would break it again and reset it with one of them cage things with pins that go on the outside of your leg. He's left it. He doesn't have day to day problems at the moment but he could have in future

It really depends on where the break is. If it's an avulsed piece of bone off the end of the fibula then these are usually treated as a high grade sprain anyway. It is often the case that a badly sprained ankle is never as good as it was pre-injury and is vulnerable to getting injured again.

Thanks for the replies.
I'm not sure leaving it is going to be an option due to the issues it's causing, the last infection (not the sepsis but one since then) seems to have been from a horse fly bite but due to the area being constantly inflammed/swollen it quickly spreads up his leg.

I don't know if it will need re-breaking as from what the guy who did the x-rays said it's never formed a join of any kind, it's like a wedge has come away from the side/back of the bone an inch or so up from the bottom.
The main issue seems to be it's aggrevating the tissue around it causes swelling, fluid, instability and general daily discomfort.

Hopefully the follow up with the consultant comes through quickly.