How to Sleep With a Broken Femur? (Answered)

Getting a good night’s sleep with a broken leg is difficult, as anyone with a femur fracture is aware. Getting comfortable and pain-free for the night can be difficult if your thigh is in a cast or you have various metal objects screwed in.

Throughout my femur fracture recovery, I picked up a few things that frequently made it easier for me to get some rest. I say “often”and not “always” because on some nights I just could not find a comfy sleeping position. However, on many more occasions, a few easy steps enabled me to get some much-needed rest.

How Serious is the Femur Fracture?

A broken femur is a serious injury that needs to be treated right away by a doctor. Surgery and physical therapy are used to treat broken femurs. Your broken femur may require months to heal. By falling, being shot, or being involved in a car accident, you can break your femur. Elderly people who are prone to injuries from falls can break their femurs.

The longest, heaviest, and strongest bone in your body is your femur, which is the leg bone that lies between your hip and knee. Your femur needs to be broken with a lot of force. You will require emergency medical care if you break your femur. Your broken femur can take months to heal.

The most common reasons for femur breaks are being shot, falling, or being involved in a car accident. The risk of breaking bones, such as the femur, increases with age for people who fall while standing, especially those over 65.

If you break your femur, you might:

• If your fracture pierces your skin, you could lose blood. If your fracture pierces your skin, you could experience greater blood loss than if it doesn’t.
• Go into shock.
• If you break your femur’s upper end, you could also break your hip. (This is a common problem for people with osteoporosis.)
• If the portion of your femur just above your knee breaks, your knee will be damaged. (Osteoporosis sufferers and those with knee replacements frequently experience this issue.)

How to Sleep With a Broken Femur?

Make Rest a Priority

Quality rest should always be a priority, but even more so when your body is trying to heal from broken bones. Sleep is essential for proper healing because it allows your body to recover and release growth hormones. Make a conscious effort to go to bed early and ensure you’re getting the proper amount of sleep each night.

A simple way to tell if you’re getting the proper amount of sleep at night is to notice if you’re waking up before your alarm goes off in the morning. If you are, your sleep is perfect! You may need to adjust your sleep schedule and get used to it, but when you heal perfectly, you won’t regret it.

Elevate Your Broken Femur

Any broken bone needs to be elevated, regardless of the type of bone that was broken. It’s a good idea to sleep with your broken bone elevated to keep blood from collecting and inducing swelling around the break.

The most comfortable position to sleep in with an injury that is supported by slings and pillows depends on the kind and location of your injury. In order to prevent placing more pressure on the injury site, lying on your back is the best position for sleeping with broken ribs.

Elevating your injury can significantly help, particularly if your broken bone pain is worse at night. The challenge here is making sure your broken bone stays elevated the whole night while you sleep, but one easy solution is to use an adjustable base to make your healing (and sleeping) process easier.

Stabilize Yourself

In addition to the difficulty of keeping a broken bone elevated while you sleep, many people with broken bones find it unsettling to sleep because they worry they might roll on top of the injury unintentionally, resulting in further damage or discomfort. You can do a few things to keep your body still at night, even though it’s difficult to control your movement while you sleep. Gather some pillows (Mattress Firm has a great selection) and blankets to serve as a guardrail for your mattress so you can’t roll over during the night. We like to picture this as a cozy little healing cocoon.

Wear Loose Fitting Pants

You should wear comfy pajamas in addition to a comfortable surface. Wide-legged pajamas allow you to move around without the constrictive, tight fabric adding to your leg pain.

Padded Pillow

During femur fracture recovery, pillows can make or break (pun intended) your sleep. Keep a few extra pillows close by and use them to raise your leg as painlessly as you can. I highly recommend getting a full-body pillow like this one.

Consider Other Potential Disturbances

You must take other factors into account in order to choose the best sleeping position for your injury. Be especially careful to keep your injury as stable as possible if, for instance, a big dog sleeps with you. When your injury has fully healed, it will be worthwhile to miss a few nights of sleeping with your pet by your side.

Summary

It is inconvenient to have a broken femur. You have to lug around a heavy cast, deal with pain as you heal, face activity limitations… the list goes on and on. The simple part should be giving your body some rest. Not only may you heal faster and stronger if you make rest a priority when you have an injury, but you can also create some good sleep habits to carry with you once you’re healthy again!

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