Sacral Stress Fracture.. what to expect during recovery?

Firstly, best of luck with your recovery.

YMMV considerably from mine as I'm a 41-year-old male who concentrated on the marathon. That said, I've had two sacral stress fractures in the last two years, so I certainly have experience on the topic.

The first one presented with lots of movable hip and groin pain over the course of many weeks until one day it let go and I was in agony. MRI confirmed the stress fracture and I was told no weight bearing for six weeks, so six weeks of two crutches followed by a further three of one crutch. Not sure why you've been told no crutches.

My fracture was just inside the margin to require surgery and a plate - given it broke again twelve months later, I suspect it should have been plated.

After the initial six-week period, I was permitted to pool walk (not run, nor was I to swim) and stationary cycle. I was only to cycle if I was genuinely pain free and only twice a week. I also began a strength programme targeting hips (range of movement) and glutes. After a month of this I moved to an Alter-G treadmill, initially at 50 percent body weight and gradually moving to 100 per cent over the next six weeks.

I moved to short runs outside while increasing mileage on the treadmill. It was three and a half months from injury before I ran a 5k outside. Four months out from injury all of my running was back on the roads, but volume was carefully managed. By this stage I could cycle as much as I liked for cardio.

Nine months out from injury I was back to 70mpw but wasn't running any workouts. Twelve months out from injury I was back to pre-injury fitness (85mpw and running workouts) but the fracture site let go again (standing up after eating breakfast). Thankfully it was a much smaller fracture and I only required four weeks off.

Recovery was much the same as the first time but I managed to complete a 90mpw marathon cycle and run my goal time, so don't be discouraged.

I still have random back, hip and groin pain but generally I don't have any lingering issues.

You've youth on your side, so your recovery could be a lot smoother than mine. Again, best of luck.

Sorry to hear about your injury! I had a sacral stress fx on the left ala a few years ago - it's a super uncomfortable one because the sacrum connects to EVERYTHING, so any movement involves it, but the good news it that they generally heal well and quickly.

You sound like you are being very smart about it, so kudos. That's the first step. I did a few weeks of nothing like you to jumpstart healing, and then starting up spin bike with low resistance and deep water running about 3 weeks in. Both were pain free (before, during, and after - that's the general rule of thumb for cross-training back from injury). About 5 weeks in, I started, through PT, on the Alter-G at 50% of body weight and worked up. MRI at 9 weeks showed full healing.

Like you, I did have pain for a long time with it - I think a lot was phantom. I also had a fair amount of nerve pain because the fracture was near the origin of the sciatic nerve. So I wouldn't worry too much if you are still having some pain - I found that to be the case throughout the healing. Even when the MRI came back and showed full healing, I still thought I was feeling stuff.

Best to you!

I had a sacral stress fracture 3 years ago. 32 yr old female, was running ~60 mpw. I was off from running a total of 10 weeks. Probably could have tried to start jogging at 8 or 9 weeks but wanted to be extra careful.

I also was not on crutches at all and was fine. I felt it walking around for the first 3-4 weeks and then the pain gradually subsided. Weeks 5-6 onward, I didn’t really feel anything. I probably started cross training at around the 4th week and only did swimming with a pull buoy so no kicking. Once I didn’t really feel the pain anymore (week 5 ish), I started doing more swimming. I am not a huge cross trainer so that is about the extent of what I did with maybe a few aqua jogging sessions thrown in later on. But honestly I didn’t want to overdo it with cross training and delay any healing.

So starting jogging after 10 weeks and was totally fine and haven’t had issues since.

Hey there, how did the recovery come along? I ask because my symptoms were similar to yours before also being diagnosed with the sacral stress fracture and it took about 4 weeks from the date when severe pain started (sudden onset) before I could walk without pain again. At 5.5 weeks I still feel a twinge of pain putting on pants but I’ve also been biking pretty frequently. Doc said 6-8 weeks off so it’s almost to the point where I can try to run. Did everything work out okay for you?