How to take care of your cast or splint

Casts and splints are not the same thing. Casts are hard all the way around your hand or arm, but a splint is hard only in certain areas. A splint will not stay on on its own but requires a wrap bandage to keep it on, whereas casts don’t require a wrap bandage to stay on.

Both casts and splints can be made of plaster or fibreglass.

General care

Your splint/cast must be kept dry at all times. If you have a plaster splint or cast, and it gets wet, it will get soggy and lose support. If you have a fibreglass cast, the padding on the inside will get soggy and will not dry out, which will make it loose and possibly cause your skin damage.

If your cast or splint gets wet, please follow the instructions here:

For showering, you can either cover the splint/cast with a plastic bag and an elastic band or hair elastic; or you can purchase a cast bag from your local drug store. Make sure you call ahead to your drug store as not all drug stores stock cast bags.

If you have a tensor or ACE bandage on the splint/cast, you can change it if it gets dirty.

Do not change the white bandage holding the splint to your arm.

Pain control - Elevation

It is normal to have some pain after surgery or an injury.

Most pain after any injury in the hand is related to swelling. Allowing your hand to dangle increases the swelling. This causes an intense throbbing pain that won’t go away. That intense throbbing pain is usually the pain that cannot be controlled with medications.

Therefore it is very important to keep the part of your body we splinted elevated at all times for 24-72 hours, including during sleep.

You will know that you can stop elevating your hand when you no longer get the throbbing pain when you let your hand hang down.

Pain control - Medication

When you feel the anesthetic starting to wear off, you can begin taking medication for your pain:

Take 2 regular strength Acetominophen (325mg x 2) every 4 hours. You should not take more than 4000mg in 24 hours from any pills that have Acetominophen in them.

Take 2 regular strength Ibuprofen (200mg x 2) every 4-6 hours. You can take up to 600mg if you need the pain control and your stomach will tolerate it.

Narcotic medications can dull your pain too much, allowing you to do things that could make the injury worse and should be avoided if possible.