Anyone ever have a fibular stress fracture???

Yes, I had a stress fracture in my fibula and I got the same line of baloney...I did better looking up information on the Internet for myself...oh and the doctors are stupid because the fibula actually does bear about 10 percent of your weight. But yes, my theory was that I got the stress fracture from the tendons pulling on the bone.

I had a fibular stress fracture a few years back. I suggest doing a lot of stability and balance work to strengthen the outside of your leg once you start to feel healthier. Hope all goes well, I know it sucks.

yeah i had a stress fracture in my fibula. i agree with the tendons pulling on the bone idea. i think i was in shoes that had too much support and it was throwing my foot to the outside which pulled on the tendons on the outside of my lower leg, thus eventually resulting in the break.

Had it on the right leg. In my case, I had gotten a bad sprain on my left ankle and favored it while marathon training. That, along with the higher strike on the left leg from the pitch of most roadways, caused it. That was the theory I gave my orthopedist and she thought it made a lot of sense. 3-1/2 months of no running - bike riding was OK - and it healed, even at the age of 52.

No Country For Old Runners wrote:

Had it on the right leg. In my case, I had gotten a bad sprain on my left ankle and favored it while marathon training. That, along with the higher strike on the left leg from the pitch of most roadways, caused it. That was the theory I gave my orthopedist and she thought it made a lot of sense. 3-1/2 months of no running - bike riding was OK - and it healed, even at the age of 52.

Oops, meant to say RIGHT leg in 3rd sentence above.

i incurred mine during a trail race when i took a step that i interpreted as jamming my foot on a root, leading to pain in the ankle. the race was 10-mile loop course, and i had a plan to do four loops (training for what was to be my first 100K). the incident happened at about mile 19.5, and as i passed through the start/finish at 20, i figured i'd shake the pain soon and be fine. well, no. i finished three loops (as first woman, even passing a few guys), although by the time i was done my foot wouldn't come out of a flexed position, and the swelling was quite pronounced. i have a history of stress fractures, so my sports doc took it seriously and diagnosed it correctly. this was two years ago when i was 46, and i've since come back to run better than ever. i spent most of my three-month recovery period on my bike (~250 miles/week) once it no longer hurt to clip into my pedals, and before that i did wetsuite-clad aquajogging in a northeast lake in early june, which provided the double benefit of aerobic exercise and icing.

Yeah, had one in high school, three doctors misdiagnosed it,I think tendinitis one of the first things they said. A physical therapist my coach knew who worked specifically with runners had a hunch what is was after examining me and had me get a bone scan which picked it up, right on the bottom of the bone on my right side. Spent 4 months out with it. Everyone was always asking me how the hell do you get a stress fracture on your fibula? I think I heard about one other person with the same problem from a different school in the league a few years before me.

I had back to back fibular stress fractures 2 years ago (about 6 months apart). I blame it completely on changing shoes to ones that had a large medial post and began loading the lateral side of my leg more than it had been previously.

I made the change because I was experiencing some mild shin splits and other minor injuries associated with not enough support. Turns out they were worth putting up with or at least making a more gradual change.

The exact same thing happened to me - I had pain on the outside of the leg (just when you pressed on that area) but at that point it was bearable pain and not that bad. I told my sports doctor and he said it was fine. I continued to run on it for about a month and the pain just kept getting worse and it started to become unbearable when I ran. I went back to the doctor, got a bone scan and guess what - a stress fracture in my fibula.

I had read about getting tendonitis in that area and it just keeps getting worse and pulls on the bone causing a stress fracture. I asked my doctor about it but since I have a history of stress fractures he just said that even with my low mileage I'm just easily susceptible to getting stress fractures. But I disagree, I just think I got tendonitis and when I should have backed off, I just tried to run through it.

Of course, doctors are stupid. Why shouldn't they suspect a much less common diagnosis than a more common one? You know the old adage --> when you hear hoof beats, look for zebras.

Do you recommend that every time you have a new pain that they order a bone scan? Sounds like a wonderful use of resources. I'm sure that none of you have bitched about the rising costs of health care. Maybe physicians need to take into account that some runners are too stupid to increase their training load gradually enough for the bones to adapt to the stress.

i'm in the process of starting to run again after recovering from a fibular stress fracture. My doctor did an MRI right away and found that i had tendonitis, scar tissue, and a fibular stress fracture. It was my own fault that I let it get as bad as it did. They aren't sure yet how I managed to get it though, because they did say "it's non weight-bearing bone."

dmsmd wrote:

Do you recommend that every time you have a new pain that they order a bone scan?

I never said doctors should just assume that its a stress fracture if it is on your fibula. All I'm saying is seeing how it is more common than most doctors think (as proof by the many people I know personally and the people posting here) that doctors should be AWARE of this possibility. Maybe tell the patient, "well it's tendonitis right now but if we don't treat it then it could turn into a stress fracture in your fibula," instead of completely dismissing the idea of a fibular stress fracture as being possible.

dmsmd wrote:

Do you recommend that every time you have a new pain that they order a bone scan?

I never said doctors should just assume that its a stress fracture if it is on your fibula. All I'm saying is seeing how it is more common than most doctors think (as proof by the many people I know personally and the people posting here) that doctors should be AWARE of this possibility. Maybe tell the patient, "well it's tendonitis right now but if we don't treat it then it could turn into a stress fracture in your fibula," instead of completely dismissing the idea of a fibular stress fracture as being possible.

I think that is a valid point regarding physicians being more explanatory with their differential diagnoses. However, I think that it is foolish to consider fibular stress fractures common because you know a lot of people with the injury. Your pool of data comes from a group that is not representative of the general population. If all of your friends took a trip to Papua New Guinea and dined on human brains, you might think kuru a common disease because you know a lot of people stricken by it, but it still would be a very rare condition.

I should add before someone points it out that fibular stress fractures do comprise up to 10% of lower leg stress fractures, but tendinitis would still be a more likely etiology of the pain. Common things are common.

I remember that Jack "Hacksaw" Reynolds of the L.A. Rams played the last couple games of the NFL season w/ a fractured fibula. If he could do that, running shouldn't even be an issue.

Of course, this was a guy who got his nickname by sawing a whole car in half after his college team lost a game.

I should add before someone points it out that fibular stress fractures do comprise up to 10% of lower leg stress fractures, but tendinitis would still be a more likely etiology of the pain. Common things are common.

Alright this post kind of scares me because i have been having pain in my lower fibula and just got it checked out and they said it's just tendonitis. I dont think it's a stress fracture now, so is there anythin i can do now to heal the tendonitis and prevent a stress fracture?? How would you know if it turned into a stress fracture??

Are you really that stupid? That man was paid to play sports. When they say fractured fibula, do you really know what they mean? How do you know he didn't just have a stress fracture. Besides, he was on lots of prescription pain killers, he was motivated by money, and he knew it was only a little bit of time on his feet. That's a lot different than continuously pounding your legs on pavement while running. There is no comparison between the two. If you are paid to play sports and there are only a couple games left, it's not that big of a deal to play while injured. If you are just some guy going for runs and trying to run a PR, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to torture your body through pain so that you can inevitably feel like crap later with no benefit at all.