My doctor put me in an Aircast. He said all I really needed was to rest my foot and not use it. The Aircast had the added benefit of letting me remove it to shower and to sleep. (I tried to sleep the first two nights with the Aircast and it was incredibly uncomfortable.)
So three nights ago, I was sleeping without my Aircast on, as usual. I normally cover myself in some heavy blankets, but I let my broken foot stick out so I don’t accidentally yank all my covers and bend my foot. It’s easy to bend some toes one way or another in the blankets, which is normally fine but less fine with a broken foot.
Three nights ago, my broken foot was under the covers, for some reason, and I gave them a big yank. It hurt. It was probably the most pain I’ve felt since I broke my foot. I said out loud, “Ow.” I hoped I didn’t do anything bad. Perhaps it was negligence on my part or in my sleep I covered my foot with the blankets — I don’t know.
But lately, I have noticed my broken foot, which had started to look normal, looks a bit swollen again. I hope it’s just in my head and I am worrying about that toe bend for nothing, but if I managed to somehow interrupt the healing process four weeks into being non-weight bearing, I think I may cry. Four weeks of healing down the drain? I can’t even imagine.
I just called my doctor and left a message. I was supposed to start putting some weight on my foot this week. Now I’m not so sure I should. We’ll see what he says…
Broken Fifth Metatarsal 
I fear I did this same thing, except it wasn’t while I was asleep, it was actually during the day WITH my aircast on. I simply got ahead of myself and started weighting my foot again because there was no pain while using the aircast. Well, at the end of that day, i looked at my foot and sure enough, it was swollen. Pushing in on the skin right above the break was like pushing on a piece of playdough. My finger indented the skin and the fluid filled area below retained the indentation perfectly for about 10 minutes until the fluid filled the space back in. Gross! The good news, is that I don’t believe I actually moved the bone fragments at all. Maybe I did, and I didn’t feel it, but I don’t think so. I think I would’ve felt it distinctly and remembered it as well. Not only that, but this aircast is pretty stiff, and it would be hard to move the broken fragments sufficiently enough to cause problems. That’s just my opinion though, and I could be COMPLETELY WRONG. All I know for certain is that my foot is swollen again and it hasn’t gone down to the size it was at on the 3 week mark in just under 2 days of completely resting it and keeping it elevated. So, with that said, I suppose it is entirely possible that I disrupted the soft-callus stage of healing and it needs a few more days to resume where it was. I don’t think that a disruption would necessarily mean having to start a square one again, but I haven’t been able to find any research/studies on that. The body is miraculous at healing. For instance, if you rip a large scab off entirely, your body doesn’t give up and say “well, let’s start all over again and get this right”. No, it says, ok, that sucked, but look at the progress I’ve already got going here, let’s pick up with what we’ve got and get this thing going again asap. In my opinion only, I think I may have delayed my healing time a week AT MOST. Obviously consult your doctor/ortho if you’re super concerned though.
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You probably didn’t re-injure it. I did go to the doctor (well, he made his physician’s assistant see me) and the x-ray looked exactly the same. When your foot is broken, all you want is for it to heal and get back to life, but nature will do its thing. I’d look for signs it’s healing, like being able to move your toe, or being able to grab your toe and wiggle it without it hurting + seeing the bone move as a unit. That was the point I started to put weight on it and walk. I actually never got to see an x-ray with the bone filled in – once the soft tissue filled in I was effectively “healed” enough. Good luck!
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Hey, thanks for the reply!!! I truly appreciate it. Today marks 4 weeks of healing for me and it feels well under way for good healing and a quick return to climbing in a few weeks!
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I just realized that this was posted over 2.5 years ago. What did you end up having to do???? Did that incident delay your healing by another 4 weeks?
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I responded to your other comment with an answer! It didn’t delay anything as far as I can tell. It hurt and maybe it was disruptive, but healing was well on its way by that point.
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