Diagnosis

Your doctor will examine your injured leg, checking for swelling, deformity, abrasions, bruising and tenderness. To help determine whether a sharp edge of broken bone has damaged your leg's blood vessels or nerves, the doctor also will feel the pulses along the length of your injured leg, and will check for normal skin feeling and muscle strength in your leg and foot. If the physical examination suggest that your leg's arteries or large veins may have been injured, the doctor will order specialized tests, called Doppler studies, to measure the leg's blood flow more precisely.

Your leg will be X-rayed to confirm the location and severity of your fracture, and to check for less-obvious fractures and dislocations in nearby joints.

Expected Duration

A leg fracture can take many months to heal. Six months is a reasonable estimate of average healing time, although some fractures take longer.