Femoral Stress Fracture Not Healed After 5 Months

I had the same thing right leg...inside just over the knee about three inches. Nobody believed me because they said it was impossible to get a stress fracture in your femur. Of course I proved them all wrong and in 6 weeks I started out running again very slow and careful. The tightness was there for about a year afterwards and I ran scared for most of it. Eventually I just set F it ran my ass off again and became all-american. So don't give up k.

Femoral stress fracture in nearly the same spot, three inches above the left knee. Started to hurt in September, didn't start back running until Jan 1. First few weeks were fine, but after about a month I had what felt like tightness. Since then I've oscillated between 0 and 25mpw.

Should I expect pain/discomfort for up to a year? At what point did you say "My leg isn't up for it today, I'd better cross train." How did you determine that?

Thanks a lot.

Definatly get on some serious calcium suppliments. Possibly a prescription from your doctor. Look at finding a bone stiumulator. I liked aqua jogging to get everything stetched out without the pounding.

Work on your nutrition man and hammer it. I have come back twice from them. One time in 12 weeks and the second in 10 weeks and they were both fine. But I was taking about 2000% of my calcium a day, plus a,c,e which help remove toxins, and others to promote healing.

Sometimes it just takes time. I have heard of people that need to get a plate put in to finally get it healed. Do what you have to do.

bump

bump

I had the same sort of problem: two stress fractures over the course of six months, being unable to run throughout. I finally started taking a ton of calcium, and I'm finally back running. There's hope still!

Maybe some of this sounds obvious, maybe not. The cause of the stress fracture is not just plain pounding on the bone but tight muscles that lead to tight tendons that leads to pulling where the tendons attach to the bone which leads to stress fracture. The first order of business has to be to let the bone heal. Bone heals in a finite amount of time if left alone. If you really take a real rest break for two months, your bone should be healed. That doesn't mean sit on your butt totally. Some light load bearing exercise is good for the healing process. Let pain be your guide. If it is uncomfortable at all, stop. If it feels okay, then it probably is. I'm talking about walking or aquajogging. Elliptical and bike are not great for femoral stress fractures. After two months, start over like you are a new runner. To prevent the muscle and tendon tightness from happening again and causing the fracture, don't stretch cold muscles. Do a super easy warm up before any type of run and do an equally super easy cool down after any type of run. Instead of stretching, massage your legs (yourself with the stick or a tennis ball or your thumbs or professionally periodically).

It can't hurt to get checked for bone density, just in case.

Good luck!

In my femoral stress fracture experience (3, so I fully feel your pain and frustration) the bike and the elliptical were not a good idea. Agua jog the hell out of yourself. As far as knowing when to come back, I would have a little bit of achiness for the first week or so, but after that, nothing. If your body is having a hard time taking that first step, then you are better off to be patient. 2 hours of aqua jogging a day for 7 weeks and I was qualifying for nationals 2 months later. Good luck.

I've had 2 femoral stress fractures both of which healed within 8 weeks. The line on the femur you see in the xray- are they sure its just a stress fracture or did you create a real "fracture" by the bounding, etc?

I would second what alot of the others on this board have said, check you diet. Calcium is obvious, but also make sure you're eating healthy overall. Don't cut calories, eat normal.

Also, I feel that a stress fracture, nevermind one that takes 5 months to heal, is a major injury. The reality is that you won't be in any kind of running shape when it finally heals. Don't go crazy in the pool or bike, just do enough to "maintain sanity".

Good luck, I feel for you.

When I came back from my femural fracture there was a similar pain (though the x-ray showed no fracture), and still is about 3 months later. Muscular tightness is how the pain first starts, and the muscle itself has to become loose after all of that even if the bone has healed. I was off a total of 8 weeks.

Best of luck healing.

Thank you all for the advice. This is one of the few times that I have actually been told SOMETHING and not just "rest" from the doctors. Some of what you said is not entirely ground breaking, but it's the kind of thing I would not have realized on my own. I feel like there is hope...

Are you taking a standardized extract of Cissus quadrangularis?

I've been off from running for 8 weeks with my femoral stress fracture. I had 6 weeks when the doctors advised me to not even aqua jog or anything. He thought that the muscles contracting could put force on the femur and keep it from healing.

After my last visit I was advised to try light cycling and aqua jogging and to eventually work up to the elliptical and walking, and over the next few weeks test out short jogs on grass, like 1-2 minutes at a time.

I personally like to cycle more than I like aqua jogging, and I am just trying to keep from going crazy, so that's why I've been doing more cycling than aqua jogging.

I was told that stressing the bone a little bit will help it heal stronger, and that I can even stress it to the point that I have a little bit of pain. (I haven't been taking any pain meds, but the doc said it would even be ok to stress the leg a little bit more and take the medicine. I haven't done this because I really want to be able to feel what is going on in my leg and to not over due it.)

The key is to not stress it so much that I'm causing damage again.

My fracture is in my left femoral shaft, on the inside of the leg, maybe 3 inches down from my groin. At first I thought that it was a hip flexor strain. When the pain started to radiate down my leg my friend, who had a stress fracture in the same spot, diagnosed the problem. I'm glad he said something, because I didn't believe him at first, I didn't think it could have been a stress fracture, but I went to the doctors and had an MRI to confirm it.

I would really question a doctor whose advice was to work something to the point of pain and to medicate through it.

I'm taking two calcium supplements everyday. The docs said to use pain as my guide, but didn't seem to think that anything was wrong with biking or the elliptical. It seems like, from their perspective, this injury was my fault, I mean "this kid was running 80 miles a week!" Maybe it was my fault, but I know I have to change what I am currently doing if I don't want this to become a permanent/ chronic problem. My career depends on my healing, not to mention my sanity. I am officially getting off the bike and into the pool.

bump it up!

I may be heading down the same path.

I have a stress reaction in and around the lesser trochanter. Happened Dec. 31 2006, Dx confirmed in early March. I had assumed the worst since around Jan. 6, so I had laid off from everything except a little swimming for 4 weeks. Did some easy core workouts from week 4 to week 6, did easy elliptical starting week 6, then confirmed diagnosis at week 8. Around then I started easy walking once a week, then twice a week, then 3X. I was doing well on rehab, with 3 walking days and 2 elliptical days. Then I overdid it at week 10. In the last 10 days I had begun doing some baby step shuffle-jogs, only raising my foot 3 to 6 inches off the ground, only doing 60 seconds of jogs in between walking for 10 minutes. All of a sudden Friday night, about 6 hours after a jog, the pain in the hip came back strong, about 40 percent as strong as the initial injury. Hurt to walk and stand on it and ached at night while sleeping. Next day also hurt to walk at first, later it only hurt if I walked more than around 200 feet. Now it doesn't hurt to sleep or walk short distance.

This is exactly where I was after about a week of rest the first time of the original injury in January.

I obviously pushed bones over the tolerance limit of total volume, frequency, and intensity of exercise. Funny thing is that you will be perfectly fine building up to that point, then all of a sudden, WHAM, back to square one for healing. Originally I thought I would be doing easy jogging of a mile or two around 4 months later (late April/early May). The healing clock has been restarted, now I will be lucky to get back to running for the entire summer season.

When this happens you have to be patient and rethink your entire strategy. Staying in cardio shape through all of this is nearly impossible. Same thing for staying in good shape in my knee, which needs frequent exercise ever since a meniscus tear.

That sounds exactly like what happened to me. My dad told me to start building up because there was no way it could still be injured. So I ran 2 minutes one day. Then 4 minutes. Then after a couple of days, 6 minutes. I did that building up to 15 minutes and than Whammm! My leg throbbed in pain for the next two days. I've been cross-training myself to exhaustion, and I think that needs to change. The Docs think any form of cross-training is all well and good as long as there isn't any sharp pain, but that's the thing, I'll push myself to the limit if I think the pain isn't "sharp." Heck, that's probably how I got into this situation to begin with. So I need to change what I'm doing...

Yeah I wouldn't worry TOO MUCH about cross training. it's all well and good, and you want to keep your weight down and everything, but the most important thing is getting that leg healed, and any physical activity, especially heavy heavy cross training, is going to be more of an impediment than a help.

I had a femoral stress fracture. Biking only for about four monthhs and then I started building up and my return to running went relatively smoothly. No one had heard of a femoral stress fracture til I got one, but now it seems like everyone and his brother has had one (my rival from the local high school, dathan, etc.). They are pretty common, and they aren't good. It looks like yours is worse than mine was. I would just bite the bullet and take a month off from all physical activity and reevaluate.