stress fracture.

[talley33]

Last season was cut short for me due to a stress fracture in my leg. I had been experiencing shin splints for a couple months and it ended up being a stress fracture. I got to rest it for the most part of the summer minus normal activities and football workouts. We also went to a physical therapist and the hospital multiple times. Over 2 months I was told I had shin splints, stress fracture, tendonitis, and fallen arches. So we got arch supports and the Nike pole vault spikes because of the arch support in it. Now this year I have only been jumping for 3 weeks and I am already experiencing pain in my leg (same leg I had the stress fracture in). I didn’t have hardly any problems in football with it and now it’s started again. I really do not my year to be cut short. Any advices you give me would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. most of the problems are in my trail leg.

[rainbowgirl28]

How did they diagnose that it was a stress fracture?

[talley33]

they took x-ray of it. they said it actually wasnt a true stress fracture but a stress reaction. but if i had kept goin on it much longer it would lead to a fracture

[Ajw118]

That is a very similar situation to what I had. For me, it's caused by blood flow into the muscles around my shin that cause pain.

Heres what worked well for me: 3 advil before practice and usually 2 in the morning, sometimes more. (I know, not healthy)

or even better

550 mg of prescription anti-inflammatory like Naprolin x2 a day. Ask your doctor about that.

[rainbowgirl28]

That is a very similar situation to what I had. For me, it's caused by blood flow into the muscles around my shin that cause pain.

Heres what worked well for me: 3 advil before practice and usually 2 in the morning, sometimes more. (I know, not healthy)

or even better

550 mg of prescription anti-inflammatory like Naprolin x2 a day. Ask your doctor about that.

You can buy naproxen (aka Alleve) over the counter.

My advice would be to vault in good running shoes as much as possible for practice, only use spikes for meets or a few practice jumps from long run.

[talley33]

yeah im not a big fan of using alot of advils and things like that because of the damage it does to your stomache and ive felt the effects of it, and it is not fun. they gave me high dossage anti-inflamitory to use

[rainbowgirl28]

yeah im not a big fan of using alot of advils and things like that because of the damage it does to your stomache and ive felt the effects of it, and it is not fun. they gave me high dossage anti-inflamitory to use

Yeah I messed up my stomach taking too much ibuprofen in HS. Just take whatever they gave you sparingly and make sure to take it with food.

Also, when you are warming up and such, do as much as you can on soft surface (grass/turf). You may even want to try getting the blood flowing by running in place on the pit.

[tsorenson]

Your best solution with minimal side effects is to ice your shin(s) after every workout. Try getting some re-useable hot/cold packs (the blue gel stuff) and ace bandages at your local pharmacy. You can strap the packs on your shins and go about your business without having to put your feet up or hold them on there.

Fifteen minutes of ice after every workout will have a major anti-inflammatory effect without destroying your liver and kidneys like advil or other NSAID drugs. Often these medications can actually worsen an injury by allowing you to go past the point of pain without realizing it, and the inflammation always comes back with a vengeance once the drugs have worn off...usually worse. Before you know it, you will end up taking five or six advil just to do your workouts...

Equally important is to strengthen the muscles surrounding the shins by doing various exercises year-round.
-Walking around the house on your heels only, toes raised up
-Standing toe raises
-Spend as much time as possible in your bare feet/socks
-Flexing/extending your ankles in every direction with either a "Theraband" or a partner for resistance
-Walking plant drills with feet dorsiflexed (toes flexed up)actually helps, too

Try all these solutions before resorting to any drugs...you might need your liver and kidneys later in life!

Good luck,

Tom

[talley33]

yeah i do all of these things. i always ice after a practice and i have a theraband that i use. i also like to only use running shoes anytime i can

[vault3rb0y]

Make sure to take your weekends to recovery as fully as possible. I've always had shin problems and found that it may never go away, but that if i take care of them during the week with icing and stretching, followed by a massage flush on fridays (hurt like hell but do wonders), and a SOLID weekend of absolutely NO strain on your shins other than stretching, that by monday i can put in a solid vault day, tuesday i am ok to run a workout, wednesday usually has some pain, but thursday i can short-run, and friday just hurts again. But the point is, as long as they arent painful enough that you can't vault, taking the weekends off and getting a good flush of the blood out of your shins before the weekend might do you some good. Try an ice-cup that you progressively push harder and harder from your ankle up through your calf, but only moving upwards with the pressure.

[VaultPurple]

Make sure to take your weekends to recovery as fully as possible. I've always had shin problems and found that it may never go away, but that if i take care of them during the week with icing and stretching, followed by a massage flush on fridays (hurt like hell but do wonders), and a SOLID weekend of absolutely NO strain on your shins other than stretching, that by monday i can put in a solid vault day, tuesday i am ok to run a workout, wednesday usually has some pain, but thursday i can short-run, and friday just hurts again. But the point is, as long as they arent painful enough that you can't vault, taking the weekends off and getting a good flush of the blood out of your shins before the weekend might do you some good. Try an ice-cup that you progressively push harder and harder from your ankle up through your calf, but only moving upwards with the pressure.

From what your week looks like, you seem to have 3 main running days. Well you said Monday-vault, Tuesday- Run, Wed- some pain (you didn't say what you do on these days), Thursday- short runs, Friday-hurt (but didn't say what you do)

Depending on what you do on the other days, Why don't you just go Mon, Wed, Friday with running or vaulting, then do something like upper body or gymnastics on Tuesday and Thursday? I find every other day on my feet and a weekend off has done wonders for my shin splints and I can pretty much run full speed all three days.

[golfdane]

NSAID's like Ibuprofen might decrease the rate of recovery of sore muscles. The inflammation is what starts recovery, and when you fight the inflammation with NSAID's, could you be doing your sore muscles a disfavor. So NSAID's is not a tool to keep on training. It's for treating a condition for a limited amount of time (where you decrease the stress of the muscle or joint anyway).

Never train under the influence of painkillers. Pain is the body's reaction to something gone wrong, and continuing to stress the joint or muscle in question, will be a showstopper at some point.

Consider take a vitamin D supplement during winter, when you don't get that much sunlight, to aid in skeletal recovery, to avoid stress fractures.