Hello,
Looking to see if anyone had experience or insight on a tibialis stress fracture.
Month ago was running (I get a lot of injuries, only run 2x a week for 8-10 miles to keep injuries at bay, xtrain the rest) and started feeling very strong, crampy/seizing like pain in what I assumed was my lower medial soleus (thought it definitely felt like muscle pain, front inside part of the soleus beside the tibialis bone). Too painful to finish, thought it was some pull or cramp.
Took week off - ran again and pain came on in about a min or so. No pain when walking. Pain basically would go away after running, might linger a little or feel ever so slightly if I massaged the side calf. Repeated this pattern for about a month - a few painful, uncompleted run attempts. Sometimes randomly would loosen up and I could run a bit more. Felt a few times on elliptical.
No pain on shin really, maybe occasionally a slight ache there but really focused on muscle beside/side calf. When I press down on shin it really isn't tender anywhere - maybe slightly more so in one area, but it feels almost equally as tender on other side when I press hard on bone. Thought it was could potentially be compartment syndrome as time off didn't really heal it as it would a muscle pull - so made sports doc appt. this week.
Randomly felt way better day before appt. (wanted to run to test out before appt.) and I did 50 min with almost no pain, just slightly noticeable - huge improvement. Went to appt anyway and doctor was awful! He hardly listened to my story, felt my calf bone and asked if it was tender. I said very slightly, but hardly at all, and he said ok you have a stress fracture. Said he could send me for MRI in US tomorrow (have to wait a year in canada for an MRI) or could do bone scan, or I could just wait 8 weeks and let me go (without even a walking cast, which if I did have a stress fracture I would think is important?).
Not comfortable with this diagnosis and don't want to subject body to unnecessary radiation (or spend $500 on MRI in US) if this doc is way off and was just lazy/couldn't care less.
At its peak pain it did hurt to jump on one leg, but doesn't hurt at all now to jump on leg.
Sorry this is so long!! Just wondering if anyone has experience or insight here?
- when pain started I was on vacation so threw in 1.5 extra runs in the week, but all slow casual etc. Really not a bump as I've been running like this for so long and really? 1.5 extra runs wouldn't cause a stress fracture would it?
haha would be surprised if anyone read this far, but if you did thanks a ton! :)