IT Band injury HELP!

Sucks about your injury, I've had it a couple of times and it has normally come right within a few weeks.

I do however know of a woman who had ITBS for 18 months and eventually needed surgery to correct it. Basically the surgeon removed the part of her ITB that was rubbing across the bursa in the knee.

As it turned out she had completely torn her ITB to shreds by thrashing it with a foam roller for 18 months, so I would advise you stop that.

Long story short, the surgery was a success and she's now running again, 120-140km a week over pretty hilly terrain etc. Took her no more than 8 weeks before she took her first pain free running steps.

Hope it doesn't come to that for you.

Active Release Technique

find someone who does it. it works like magic

Doing these helped almost immediately after IT band problems had me walking for 2-3 months:

http://www.runnersworld.com/injury-treatment/stretching-and-strengthening-exercises-iliotibial-band-syndrome

what hip strengthening exercises are you doing?

I also had IT band issues last fall. Similar to you it was about a week after a PR marathon, when I was trying to get back into mileage. I took a couple weeks off to no avail. Ended up seeing sports med guy and subsequent physical therapy a couple times a week for a couple months. I found the hands on massage/ultrasound/graston therapy worked the best, with at-home foam roller. I did the hip exercises they prescribed also, though I am less confident those helped.

Finally, when I was getting back to running (~4months later), I started back at 0.5mi one day, 1 mile the next, back down to 0.5 and very gradually worked my way back up. After 6 months of increasing running, I'm finally getting close to the kind of mileage I was pre-injury. My advice, when you get back to trying to run is only run through slight discomfort/tightness, don't run through pain. This was easily the most frustrating running injury I've had (way worse than stress fxs or gastroc tears), but I'm glad to be running again. It's

First, since you have gone the conservative route, try getting the bursae injected. I treat these with Graston and ART, and for the majority of cases it works fine, bit I have had 2 cases in the last 5 years where conservative treatment did not work for whatever reason. If the injections do not work youmay need the surgical route.

In 2010-2011, this injury kept me out of commission for seven months. A year later, I had to deal with it all over again on my other leg. There were times when I honestly wasn't sure if it would ever get better, but it did.

Re: the surgery-- based off of my experiences, you probably don't need it. I saw a surgeon when dealing with my first bout of ITBS and was told that they don't like to give the lateral release surgery anymore unless the patient has abnormal patella alignment. I know someone here is going to chime in and claim that they have heard otherwise, so take it with a grain of salt if you want, but regardless I managed to recover from somewhat long-term ITBS with no surgical intervention.

Rolling, icing, and core strengthening are typically the most important parts of ITBS recovery but I'm not going to go into detail about them here because there's already a ton of solid information about them available on previous LetsRun threads and the web that can be accessed with a simple search. However, I just wanted to mention two things that I haven't seen as much about and that may have influenced my recovery:

1) Build up SLOWLY. An earlier post touched on this, but I can't stress it enough. ITBS is an overuse injury and chances are you are still in pain because you are simply progressing your mileage too quickly. I was only able to successfully return to running after my ITBS bouts when I followed a very conservative progression. For example, running 15 min/day for one week, then 20 min/day the next week, then 25 min/day the next week, etc.

2) Don't sit with your legs crossed. Ever. In fact, try to minimize time spent sitting with your knees flexed at all. When relaxing, keep your knees extended whenever possible. When I'm in class I always try to sit somewhere that I can prop my feet up and leave my legs straight. I know this sounds really weird but it has actually made a big difference for me, although I'm not 100% sure why.

Good luck. Stay positive!

Lots of good advice given so far...I would just add they're many ways to develop ITBS so there will certainly be things listed that won't be helpful.

Since you're already doing many of the recommended treatments for it, it may be a good idea to have a knowledgeable person diagnose you by looking at your form. I for example, tend to develop IT issues b/c of limited mobility in my hip flexors and calf/soleus muscles which encourage my knees to collapse inwards slightly. For me, focusing on active-release stretches for my hips/ankles + exercises like the 'Single Leg Balance and Strengthening' shown in the runner's world link work for me. I've never really benefited from foam rollers or leg lifts.