I saw a runner who had a traumatic fracture, but she had been told it was a stress fracture. This did not make sense to her, because her injury wasn't from training for a race. 

She was trying to understand the difference in healing between a stress fracture with a crack when compared to the healing time of a traumatic fracture with a similar crack.

It's important to understand they were talking about similar cracks in similar bones that remain in a similar position. We're not talking about broken bones that are displaced.

If you jump off a ladder, you break the bone and it's moved out of position, that is a completely different story. Stress fractures don't generally get displaced as much as traumatic fractures. 

If there's a crack in the bone because of a stress fracture, the bone is not displaced. But how does that compare to similar (non-displaced )traumatic fracture?

Is there any difference in healing between a stress fracture versus a traumatic fracture?

Well, that's what we're talking about today on the Doc On The Run Podcast.