What types of injuries have you had?

[Flying Feijoa]

I was thinking it might be interesting to share anecdotally what sort of injuries we've acquired through the course of skating, how the healing process was like (mental/physical), any precautions taken to minimise risk of recurrence etc.

There are studies on the prevalence of different figure skating injuries, such as this review (2018), but it would be good to know what this community has experienced - to help point people toward the right medical professionals, manage expectations during recovery, and cheer up fellow sufferers

I'm recovering from a high ankle (syndesmotic) sprain. It's rarer than the lateral ankle sprain, but perhaps more widespread in skating; it's my second such sprain and I know people in my rink who had it before. Syndesmotic sprains are insidious as they don't swell much, but take ages to heal, so require medical attention ASAP!
Both my sprains (on different feet) were about Grade I/II, since I could stand initially. The first one in 2018 was psychologically harder, since I didn't expect such a long recovery: 2 months off ice, 2 more to regain normal skating level, yet another 2 to do basic pointework (I also dance). This latest sprain is looking a tad better - back stroking after 5 weeks, but jumps, spins and even brackets are off the table for now.
Both injuries were caused by awkward falls, which are impossible to completely prevent, but there were certain common-sense measures that I had neglected for a while going into both - adequate sleep, regular conditioning, proper warm-up, off-ice jumps with attention to form (sometimes it's hard as an adult skater to find time for this...). I'll try to form better habits going forward.
Besides those acute injuries, I have a few chronic issues (Haglund's heel and accessory navicular bursitis, bunions, scoliosis) but these are now managed fairly well with physiotherapy, podiatry and proper boot fitting.

How about you?

 

[La Versaillaise]

I was thinking it might be interesting to share anecdotally what sort of injuries we've acquired through the course of skating, how the healing process was like (mental/physical), any precautions taken to minimise risk of recurrence etc.

There are studies on the prevalence of different figure skating injuries, such as this review (2018), but it would be good to know what this community has experienced - to help point people toward the right medical professionals, manage expectations during recovery, and cheer up fellow sufferers

I'm recovering from a high ankle (syndesmotic) sprain. It's rarer than the lateral ankle sprain, but perhaps more widespread in skating; it's my second such sprain and I know people in my rink who had it before. Syndesmotic sprains are insidious as they don't swell much, but take ages to heal, so require medical attention ASAP!
Both my sprains (on different feet) were about Grade I/II, since I could stand initially. The first one in 2018 was psychologically harder, since I didn't expect such a long recovery: 2 months off ice, 2 more to regain normal skating level, yet another 2 to do basic pointework (I also dance). This latest sprain is looking a tad better - back stroking after 5 weeks, but jumps, spins and even brackets are off the table for now.
Both injuries were caused by awkward falls, which are impossible to completely prevent, but there were certain common-sense measures that I had neglected for a while going into both - adequate sleep, regular conditioning, proper warm-up, off-ice jumps with attention to form (sometimes it's hard as an adult skater to find time for this...). I'll try to form better habits going forward.
Besides those acute injuries, I have a few chronic issues (Haglund's heel and accessory navicular bursitis, bunions, scoliosis) but these are now managed fairly well with physiotherapy, podiatry and proper boot fitting.

How about you?

Hi !
Nice idea, let’s show our scars !
I only had one : my coccyx was damaged by two falls on the same day (not really broken but sort of, I can’t find the proper translation).
I could still skate but neither run, jump nor ride a bike for several weeks.
I then bought padded shorts and always put them on for skating until the fear disappeared. Now I wear them when I know I’m going to fall due to fatigue or when figures I’m trying at the moment have a high falling potential.

 

[La Versaillaise]

It actually improved my skating a lot, as I didn’t need to lean forward anymore in order to avoid backward falls.

 

[Flying Feijoa]

It actually improved my skating a lot, as I didn’t need to lean forward anymore in order to avoid backward falls.

Ouch, sounds painful! Glad it didn't hold you back in the long term
If not broken, maybe a bone bruise (what would be the French term)?

Indeed, on the bright side, injuries can definitely teach us lessons...

I often hear about nasty coccyx injuries, but for some reason for me it's always ankles (or mild bruises on knees/hips). On the other hand some people never have major ankle injuries, but instead get back issues or concussions. Perhaps the type of injury susceptibility depends on individuals' physiology and skating habits?

 

[La Versaillaise]

Ouch, sounds painful! Glad it didn't hold you back in the long term
If not broken, maybe a bone bruise (what would be the French term)?

Indeed, on the bright side, injuries can definitely teach us lessons...

I often hear about nasty coccyx injuries, but for some reason for me it's always ankles (or mild bruises on knees/hips). On the other hand some people never have major ankle injuries, but instead get back issues or concussions. Perhaps the type of injury susceptibility depends on individuals' physiology and skating habits?

A bone bruise is « une fêlure » in French, so I had « une fêlure du coccyx ».

In think you’re right about physiology and skating habits. My right hip often gets a bit dislodged when I land a jump on an inside edge (the articulation is too lax, it goes back in place after a few days) but I never have problems with my ankles. I only hurt once when I was working on axels but then I tightened my skates properly and it was fine after that.
I guess my ankles and knees are always properly aligned, so my hip takes the blows instead.

 

[Vicki7]

I smacked my left shoulder into the ice after catching a toe pick while holding a glide during a group class about 4 years ago. Still have occasional issues and that shoulder doesn’t like me falling on it anymore.

No idea what I actually did as I live with 2 nurses so I’m only in front of a doctor if a limb is hanging off or I’m unconscious

 

[Flying Feijoa]

I smacked my left shoulder into the ice after catching a toe pick while holding a glide during a group class about 4 years ago. Still have occasional issues and that shoulder doesn’t like me falling on it anymore.

No idea what I actually did as I live with 2 nurses so I’m only in front of a doctor if a limb is hanging off or I’m unconscious

Oof! Unexpected falls are the worst.

I had a similar issue once (fell off a camel spin due to lack of sleep). It irritated my rotator cuff for a couple of months.

Must be handy to live with folks who know their first aid, though

 

[La Versaillaise]

I smacked my left shoulder into the ice after catching a toe pick while holding a glide during a group class about 4 years ago. Still have occasional issues and that shoulder doesn’t like me falling on it anymore.

No idea what I actually did as I live with 2 nurses so I’m only in front of a doctor if a limb is hanging off or I’m unconscious

Ouch !

 

[Ic3Rabbit]

It's easier to list the injuries I haven't had in my entire career than the ones I have had LOL! Much smaller list!

 

[Flying Feijoa]

It's easier to list the injuries I haven't had in my entire career than the ones I have had LOL! Much smaller list!

Indeed, it amazes me how much you guys go through in competition and shows!

I often find my coach's advice about skating injuries more relevant than a generic physio, since she either suffered them herself or had elite students who experienced them

 

[arabesqueallday]

Back when I did figure skating actively, I hit the back of my head really hard on the ice while practicing a combination spin. I don’t know how I was lucky for my head not to split open, but I most likely had a concussion as a result - had immense pain in my neck and collar bone area for a long while too.

I also hit my right shoulder blade while doing backward crossovers.

 

[gliese]

It's easier to list the injuries I haven't had in my entire career than the ones I have had LOL! Much smaller list!

Basically this.

I haven't sprained anything so far, lets keep it that way lol.

 

[Arwen17]

I broke my foot tripping over carpet at home.
I sprained an ankle tripping over a curb.
I've bruised various toes and broken toe nails running into the edges of doorframes or furniture.

I've never injured anything on ice, beyond a bad bruise from forgetting to take my guards off or hitting an ice bump during an MIF pattern.
I did nick myself just once with the back of my blade when unwinding from an axel attempt, but my sock took most of the impact, so it wasn't a big deal.

The only thing I ever hit on the ice is my butt, hips, or knees. Which is why I have my padded pants, just so I don't end up with a collection of bad bruises over time.

 

[WednesdayMarch]

I wrote off my entire coaching career in 1999, when I managed - inexplicably - to take a very fast and bad fall whilst practicing backward crossovers in my daily warm up. No idea what happened (it shouldn't have been a click of death thing because I have very small feet and was on dance blades, too) but we've always leant towards my blade hitting something on the ice. Anyway, it ruptured the medial ligament in my right knee and also displaced the patella, which was the longterm problem. After 4 years of getting nowhere with the NHS, my parents paid for me to see a private consultant and I had surgery (right patella realignment) to put things right. It involved digging out the tendon from the bone below the knee and performing a "lateral release" above the knee, which basically means cutting the muscle and nerves above the knee, in order to be able to remove and realign the patella. This left me with absolutely no control over my right leg and unable to move it. I had to physically move it with either my hands or by hooking my left foot under it. That came as a massive shock and I had to relearn to walk. Months of physio and rehab and major determination on my part, as I had always said that I was not going to be disabled for the rest of my life.

My consultant was thrilled with the final result. I have no working right thigh muscle and the nerves are still unable to interpret the signals from my brain, but most people have no idea. A physiotherapist will spot that I move and control my right leg from the hip, and I do struggle a bit with steps and steep inclines, especially when tired. If I just stand up and start walking without thinking it through, my right leg won't move and I'll topple over, which can be entertaining. And when I'm skating, sometimes the signals don't get through and I fall. That's usually on three turns these days, which is massively annoying. But I'm back on the ice (since 2017) and I honestly didn't think that was going to happen.

Oh, and I cracked a rib the Monday before Easter this year! Embarassingly, I was demonstrating the start of a simple ice dance when I swung my free leg through and caught the top toe pick of my Gold Stars. It's not the first time I've done this, as I've been using a combination of shorter boots and freestyle blades which, with my toe point, is pretty much asking for trouble! So now I've gone the other way and am in Jackson Elite Pros (happy warm feet!) and back on my favourite blades of all time, MK Dance. It's a shame it took about 5 new pairs of boots and 2 new sets of blades for me to find my happy...

 

[Flying Feijoa]

I wrote off my entire coaching career in 1999, when I managed - inexplicably - to take a very fast and bad fall whilst practicing backward crossovers in my daily warm up. No idea what happened (it shouldn't have been a click of death thing because I have very small feet and was on dance blades, too) but we've always leant towards my blade hitting something on the ice. Anyway, it ruptured the medial ligament in my right knee and also displaced the patella, which was the longterm problem. After 4 years of getting nowhere with the NHS, my parents paid for me to see a private consultant and I had surgery (right patella realignment) to put things right. It involved digging out the tendon from the bone below the knee and performing a "lateral release" above the knee, which basically means cutting the muscle and nerves above the knee, in order to be able to remove and realign the patella. This left me with absolutely no control over my right leg and unable to move it. I had to physically move it with either my hands or by hooking my left foot under it. That came as a massive shock and I had to relearn to walk. Months of physio and rehab and major determination on my part, as I had always said that I was not going to be disabled for the rest of my life.

My consultant was thrilled with the final result. I have no working right thigh muscle and the nerves are still unable to interpret the signals from my brain, but most people have no idea. A physiotherapist will spot that I move and control my right leg from the hip, and I do struggle a bit with steps and steep inclines, especially when tired. If I just stand up and start walking without thinking it through, my right leg won't move and I'll topple over, which can be entertaining. And when I'm skating, sometimes the signals don't get through and I fall. That's usually on three turns these days, which is massively annoying. But I'm back on the ice (since 2017) and I honestly didn't think that was going to happen.

Oh, and I cracked a rib the Monday before Easter this year! Embarassingly, I was demonstrating the start of a simple ice dance when I swung my free leg through and caught the top toe pick of my Gold Stars. It's not the first time I've done this, as I've been using a combination of shorter boots and freestyle blades which, with my toe point, is pretty much asking for trouble! So now I've gone the other way and am in Jackson Elite Pros (happy warm feet!) and back on my favourite blades of all time, MK Dance. It's a shame it took about 5 new pairs of boots and 2 new sets of blades for me to find my happy...

What a saga! I'm amazed (and glad) you managed to return to the skating after all that

It sounds like your injury was truly a freak accident. I can't help wondering, did that make it easier or harder to deal with the decision to skate again?

I tend to cope mentally with recovery by figuring out why the injury occurred, and how to stop it happening again. Unfortunately, luck is a major component and can't simply be rationalized away...

 

[WednesdayMarch]

What a saga! I'm amazed (and glad) you managed to return to the skating after all that

It sounds like your injury was truly a freak accident. I can't help wondering, did that make it easier or harder to deal with the decision to skate again?

I tend to cope mentally with recovery by figuring out why the injury occurred, and how to stop it happening again. Unfortunately, luck is a major component and can't simply be rationalized away...

Well, it took 18 long years but...

I've had a very varied and interesting (at least to me) life but was in a very dark place when my husband got my old skates down from the attic. Learning to skate again pretty much saved me.

However, I don't find it nearly as easy this time! I now have a much better idea of the fear factor that most adult learners have to battle. Along with the frustration of things that I used to find simple being beyond me now. That is probably the most difficult part. I'm never going to know how or why my injury happened but I've dealt with that, although I do possibly worry excessively about foreign bodies on the ice. I'll leave it to your imagination how terrifying I find the current craze to crystal everything...

 

[Flying Feijoa]

Well, it took 18 long years but...

I've had a very varied and interesting (at least to me) life but was in a very dark place when my husband got my old skates down from the attic. Learning to skate again pretty much saved me.

However, I don't find it nearly as easy this time! I now have a much better idea of the fear factor that most adult learners have to battle. Along with the frustration of things that I used to find simple being beyond me now. That is probably the most difficult part. I'm never going to know how or why my injury happened but I've dealt with that, although I do possibly worry excessively about foreign bodies on the ice. I'll leave it to your imagination how terrifying I find the current craze to crystal everything...

Bless him, and you too. So glad you're back on the ice with us

Do you teach any adults now? It sounds like you'd be very well-suited. It can be challenging for us to find coaches who strike the right balance between understanding the limits of our capabilities and pushing those limits safely.

On a side note, 1.5 months after the latest sprain I can do single-leg calf raises again - hooray! Injuries really drive home how much we take for granted all the stuff that our bodies manage when healthy...

 

[WednesdayMarch]

Bless him, and you too. So glad you're back on the ice with us

Do you teach any adults now? It sounds like you'd be very well-suited. It can be challenging for us to find coaches who strike the right balance between understanding the limits of our capabilities and pushing those limits safely.

On a side note, 1.5 months after the latest sprain I can do single-leg calf raises again - hooray! Injuries really drive home how much we take for granted all the stuff that our bodies manage when healthy...

I would love to be back teaching properly, and am always being asked to do it but I'd need to pass another whole set of tests (BIS Skills) as I completely missed out on Field Moves during my time away. And I'd also have to start my coaching certification right from the beginning, including 100 hours of mentoring for each level, as I currently only have Level 8 in Dance. It's a massive commitment and also a very large sum of money. Not to mention the fact that my coach isn't teaching the UK LTS courses at the moment, so that makes the mentoring impossible unless I travel to another rink. It's nearly an hour to my rink and about 2.5 hours to the nest closest. There are no other coaches at my rink I'd consider for the mentoring.

I am always happy to help, though, and seem to spend a large portion of my ice time teaching unofficially! The skating club has me as one of their "adult volunteers" and I am totally happy to help anybody who wants it.

Well done on the single-leg calf raises! Hopefully you'll be back at full strength soon.

 

[arabesqueallday]

I wrote off my entire coaching career in 1999, when I managed - inexplicably - to take a very fast and bad fall whilst practicing backward crossovers in my daily warm up. No idea what happened (it shouldn't have been a click of death thing because I have very small feet and was on dance blades, too) but we've always leant towards my blade hitting something on the ice. Anyway, it ruptured the medial ligament in my right knee and also displaced the patella, which was the longterm problem. After 4 years of getting nowhere with the NHS, my parents paid for me to see a private consultant and I had surgery (right patella realignment) to put things right. It involved digging out the tendon from the bone below the knee and performing a "lateral release" above the knee, which basically means cutting the muscle and nerves above the knee, in order to be able to remove and realign the patella. This left me with absolutely no control over my right leg and unable to move it. I had to physically move it with either my hands or by hooking my left foot under it. That came as a massive shock and I had to relearn to walk. Months of physio and rehab and major determination on my part, as I had always said that I was not going to be disabled for the rest of my life.

My consultant was thrilled with the final result. I have no working right thigh muscle and the nerves are still unable to interpret the signals from my brain, but most people have no idea. A physiotherapist will spot that I move and control my right leg from the hip, and I do struggle a bit with steps and steep inclines, especially when tired. If I just stand up and start walking without thinking it through, my right leg won't move and I'll topple over, which can be entertaining. And when I'm skating, sometimes the signals don't get through and I fall. That's usually on three turns these days, which is massively annoying. But I'm back on the ice (since 2017) and I honestly didn't think that was going to happen.

Oh, and I cracked a rib the Monday before Easter this year! Embarassingly, I was demonstrating the start of a simple ice dance when I swung my free leg through and caught the top toe pick of my Gold Stars. It's not the first time I've done this, as I've been using a combination of shorter boots and freestyle blades which, with my toe point, is pretty much asking for trouble! So now I've gone the other way and am in Jackson Elite Pros (happy warm feet!) and back on my favourite blades of all time, MK Dance. It's a shame it took about 5 new pairs of boots and 2 new sets of blades for me to find my happy...

Oh my! I agree, what a saga! Glad you’re OK!