How do broken bones repair themselves

Spencer Tomberg, M. He specializes in sports medicine. Site Search. Contact us. Ways to Give. How Do Broken Bones Heal? By: Spencer Tomberg. Healing Broken Bones There are two main ways that a doctor can help your bone heal. Surgery: For bones to heal, the broken pieces need to be close to each other. Sometimes the pieces of the broken bone cannot be put back into a place where they will heal on their own, or sometimes the broken bones will cause a joint to not work right joints are places that bones move next to each other like the shoulder, ankle or hip.

In those cases, it takes surgery to get the bones in the right place. During surgery, the doctor will use a special type of metal to hold the bones together in the right position.

After a fracture, a blood clot forms around the break. Then, bone cells begin to form on the sides of the fracture line, moving towards the center of the break, until the break heals. Once it has completely healed, the clot or callus will be absorbed by new cells. The entire process of bone fracture healing can take weeks to months. Broken bones are classified according to the characteristics of the break.

A bone can break into two or more pieces and spread far apart with some parts piercing through the skin. For complex bone fractures, the doctor needs to perform surgery. The soft tissues will likely have been damaged by the fractured bone. Human Skull Bones Activity. Yo-Yo Skeleton. By volunteering, or simply sending us feedback on the site.

Scientists, teachers, writers, illustrators, and translators are all important to the program. If you are interested in helping with the website we have a Volunteers page to get the process started. Digging Deeper. Digging Deeper: Depression and the Past. Digging Deeper: Germs and Disease. Digging Deeper: Milk and Immunity. Viral Attack What's Lurking in Lunch? Did you know that the smallest bones are located in the middle ear?

They are responsible for enhancing the sounds that are transmitted to the inner ear. Meanwhile, the biggest bones are the femur bones in the legs. These bones are quite strong and support the entire body. The bones have other important functions, too. Bones may store and release minerals, such as calcium and phosphorus.

They are important for keeping bones strong and hard. Calcium is an essential mineral not only for the bone formation but also for proper functioning of nerves, muscles and heart. Therefore, calcium is released from the bones in to the bloodstream when other part of body needs it.

Some bones contain red bone marrow, a soft, spongy tissue that produces white blood cells, which protect us from infection, red blood cells, which carry oxygen, and platelets, which help the blood to clot when there is an injury. What makes bones even more wonderful is that they can heal themselves. To understand this fascinating process, let us first look at what bones are made of. Without even using a microscope, we can see that bones are composed of an inner, sponge-like tissue called cancellous bone , a dense, tough tissue called compact bone , and an outer coat called the periosteum Figure 1.

Lots of minerals are stored in the inner, spongy, cancellous bone, and that is also where bone marrow is located. Compact bone surrounds cancellous bone and is much harder and stronger. Cancellous bone gives bones most of their strength. The periosteum provides nourishment for the other parts of the bone, among other functions. The periosteum is full of nerves that transmit information about pain, which is why you feel pain when a bone is broken.

If we look closer, with a microscope, we can see that bones are made up of living cells and a structural framework between those cells, called a bone matrix, which is made of fibers and minerals. Bones contain a mineral called hydroxyapatite , which is made from calcium and phosphorus. Minerals gives the bones their compressive strength, meaning that if you press on a bone, it is resistant to breaking.

These fibers are mostly collagen , which is made of three chains wound together. Fibers give the skeleton tensile strength, so when you pull on a bone, it will not be torn. Bones also contain four types of specialized bone cells Figure 2. Osteogenic cells are a type of stem cell, which means they can produce other types of cells.

Osteogenic cells are the only bone cells that can divide and they are important because they produce all the other types of bone cells.