Comment by DidYaWipe

I had a chipped right kneecap in 6th grade, around 1980. At that time the practice was to put the whole leg in a brace and baby it; I don't remember for how long.

Being a kid and wanting it to heal, I took that advice to heart. But of course I still wanted to do stuff... even riding my bike pedaling with only one leg.

This was highly detrimental. There was no mention of physical therapy or rehabilitation of the knee. The favoring was so quickly ingrained that it continued unconsciously even after the brace came off; now my formerly-injured leg is longer than my other one, leading to mild scoliosis and a lifetime of asymmetrical foot and/or leg problems. I can see (although the casual observer probably wouldn't notice) that my whole body developed to put more weight over my left leg.

It's infuriating. This blunder during a child's growth years can be a disaster. Even as an adult I experienced doctors dismissing this entire sequence of events as the source of measurable deformity. WTF?

I experienced a minor brush with a similar mistake much more recently. A falling basketball fractured my finger by jamming it dead-on from the tip. My general doctor put it in a splint, where it was to remain for a while. I noticed that the swelling and color were not improving over an extended period, and went to a hand specialist. He immediately removed the splint and had me flexing the finger as hard as I could every day. He said if I'd left it in the splint I would have permanently lost some range of motion.

I believe in medicine, but even with access to "good" care it's a minefield. Even a relatively informed and interested patient can't dodge all the harm from incompetent, ignorant, and outright corrupt healthcare and drug purveyors.

Don't even get me started on the serious harm visited upon people by corticosteroids and fluoroquinolones...