Brie Bella’s road back from her broken scapula has officially begun, even if the early stages are proving tougher than expected.
On the August 20 episode of The Nikki & Brie Show, Brie confirmed she’s started physical therapy and her scapula is healing without surgery.
She described the process honestly, admitting it’s been difficult so far — even something as simple as getting her arm out of the sling and moving it around has been a genuinely rough adjustment.
Brie: “But I did start physical therapy.”
Nikki: “Okay. How was that?”
Brie: “You know, it was okay. It’s tough.”
Nikki: “It’s tough. You got a long road ahead of you.”
Brie: “Yeah. Just like one, getting the arm out of the sling and just trying to move it around.”
Nikki: “Yeah.”
Brie: “I was like, holy—oh, sucks.
One of the bigger concerns doctors flagged early on is the risk of the shoulder becoming too stiff during recovery, potentially leading to frozen shoulder.
That means Brie can’t simply keep the arm completely immobilized while it heals, and she’s currently working through a set of prescribed exercises to keep things moving appropriately.
Brie: “When they brought up, like, you don’t want stiff arm, all of a sudden I was like—”
Nikki: “Frozen shoulder.”
Brie: “Yeah.”
Nikki: “Gotta keep moving.”
Brie: “Yeah.
The monitoring process is also ramping up. Brie is set to get her first follow-up X-ray this week or next, with regular X-rays every two weeks after that to track how the fracture is progressing.
The bigger checkpoint comes in roughly five weeks, when she’s scheduled for another CT scan to determine whether the broken bones are actually fusing together the way doctors hope. Brie admitted she isn’t sure what the next step would be if that scan doesn’t show the progress they’re looking for.
I get my first X-ray. They’re trying to get it this week, if not next week, and I’ll be getting it every two weeks.
That uncertainty is part of why Nikki has been pushing her sister to take these early weeks seriously. Since Brie opted against surgery, Nikki explained that avoiding any kind of setback right now is critical, since surgery would become a much worse outcome than the current recovery plan.
Drawing on her own history of bouncing back from injuries, Nikki said the difference has always come down to fully committing to rest, elevation, and following every instruction from her medical team during the earliest stages, rather than trying to push through too quickly.
