Forums >Health and Nutrition>Stress Reaction?
The shirtless wonder
I spoke with someone recently who is very knowledgeable about running injuries and they believe I have a stress reaction. That is, essentially, a pre cursor to a stress fracture. They recommended I take a full week off of running.
Last week I noticed some minor pain in my left shin close to the ankle. The pain was similar to "shin splints" but it was on the bone, not along side of it and very minor. I did an interval workout and experienced a decent amount of pain. I did an easy 4 the next morning. Later that day I was limping while walking.
I took the following day (Saturday) off completely and the pain decreased significantly. I went out for a long run on Sunday and was fine for about 5 miles and then I noticed some minor pain. By 9 miles I had to stop the run. The following day I was limping.
If there is swelling I can't see it.
The pain is almost completely gone while walking and the tenderness to the touch is also almost completely gone.
Does this sound like a stress reaction? Does it sound like a stress fracture?
How painful are tibial stress fractures? In comparison how painful are stress reactions?
Thanks,
Greg
run.therowes.net
One of the most beautiful lessons I've learnt when I was a coach at Hitachi team was; when we went to a training camp one time; at that time we only had 2 runners. We went all the way (I think it was in the summer and we went north where it was much cooler and we usually stay for like 2 weeks) and we arrived the hotel. All of a sudden, as soon as we got there, one of the girls said that her leg hurt. The purpose of "training camp" is to concentrate on piling up mileage. Of course, she was developing an injury. "So what do we do?" I asked the head coach. "What DO we do?" he replied... Really, what do we do? Maybe she was just developing an injury. But if we stayed on the course and if she ran and ran and ran, she would have come back injured. She ended up walking every day--no running.
Greg:
I really don't mean to be condecending when I say this; but what the hell are you doing? I'm sure you've heard about the analogy of stress fracture as a piece of metal stick and you keep bending it. After a while, it cracks. You see, it's not just ONE BEND that would do it. It's the accumulation of bending that would do it. I use a term "stress situation" and some people had asked me "Oh, what is it...???" Well, maybe there's no such official term but it's simply you keep bending your metal stick and you'll be pushing your body into a stress situation.
So your friend(s) who you consider knowledgeable and experienced concluded that you had a stress reaction which is, it seems you already understand, a step before stress fracture. Okay, so you took a week off and then you went straight back to doing INTERVALS??? And despite the pain coming back, you still went for a 4-mile run. And because of the pain (warning sign), you took ONE DAY OFF and went striaght back to Sunday long run????? Think about it.
The pain, especially a stress fracture, doesn't happen one day all of a sudden and disappears one day all of a sudden. The warning signal is pain. As long as you feel that, you should really consider alternate instead of trying to stick with the schedule. Whatever your racing plan might be, I'd suggest you take some time off--quite some time off--until the pain is completely gone. And even when it does disappear, you should consider sticking with easy jogging--like an hour of easy jogging--for a few weeks until it doesn't hurt at all when you're running. Even if the pain is gone when you're sleeping, if the pain is there when you run, it ain't good.
Now, I'd be the first one to warn people to be careful not to mix up some growing pain with "stress reaction" pain (=beginning of injury). I feel like far too many people, simply because they know terms like Plantar Fasciitis or ITBS or shin splint or compartment syndrom, etc...people love to use those terms and, with the slightest discomfort, they stop running and ask about it at 6 different running message boards to get 30 different "solutions". That ain't right either; but it's better to be extra sensitive when it comes to "pain" than ignorant.
Consistently Slow
So which one is it? Do not stop because of slightest discomfort or be extra sensitive to pain and stop
Run until the trail runs out.
SCHEDULE 2016--
The pain that hurts the worse is the imagined pain. One of the most difficult arts of racing is learning to ignore the imagined pain and just live with the present pain (which is always bearable.) - Jeff
http://bkclay.blogspot.com/
No, you misunderstood slightly. I took a week off *after* the intervals & long run. I'm in the middle of that rest period right now. I haven't run since last Sunday. I may be stubborn but I'm not that stubborn! The knowledgeable friend is a doctor who sees runners very regularly. I trust his opinion.
The timeline was like this:
- very minor pain early last week
- towards the end of that week I did the interval workout where there was more pain
- I took a day off and did the long run where there ended up being a lot of pain
- after the long run I took a week off
- during the week off I spoke with the Doctor who recommended I take 1 week off. He said running on Sunday would probably be fine.
I look my best blurry!
Anyway, if you really feel you have a stress sign for whatever reason, it isn't something to ignore. You really should get it checked out. Stress fractures rarely show up on x-ray, so, if you have an x-ray and it looks good that doesn't mean your fine. If your pain persists you need a MRI for a diagnosis.
All's well that ends well. A couple weeks after my 6 weeks of water running I set a new 5K PR by 40 seconds! (Honestly it was stupid to race that soon. I shouldn't have.) I still have some minor symptoms which I think are related to the muscle tendonopathy. I won't be ignoring and pushing myself through that kind of pain ever again. I thought it would work itself out. I am listening to my body, like Nobby tells me to do! And although the 6 week break seemed like eternity, just like Nobby and TChuck said, it was nothing. It went by so fast and now I am healthy and strong. I could have ended up never running again if I had kept that up.
Good luck
That's the point of my post. I'm trying to decide how serious this is. I don't want to stop running if it isn't serious enough to warrant it. I was hoping people could recount their personal experiences so that I might have a better idea if I'm being a baby or if I should take more time off.
I read your training log. You behave! No long run tomorrow unless it is in the pool!
Hangin' with Hal!
Trust me bud, stress fractures ain't fun. I've got a left tibial SF as we speak. I'm cleared for biking, swimming and deep water runs, which I'm going to end up doing all of the above (it seemed to work really well for wannabe...she totally rocked her last HM with minimal on-the-road training after her injuries). The pain itself was pretty severe at first, but I'm about a week out from my last run and the discomfort is very minimal and my limp is starting to fade. Just because the pain is starting to fade, though, doesn't mean it's okay for me to start running again, it takes a few weeks for bones to fully heal. I'm under orders from my doc, no running for 6 weeks. Period. But I'm hoping to be able to jump back in to marathon training for September...I've thrown all my time goals out the window, though...just looking to have a good time and finish at this point.
Echoing wannabe, an X-ray probably won't show anything...although an MRI might not be necessary. I had a bone scan done...what they do is inject a small dose of a radioactive substance (for me, it was a uranium isotope), let it work through the system for a couple of hours, then do the scan. I was looking at the screen while the scan was going on and the top of my left tibia (just below the knee) lit up like the Griswold house on Christmas Eve! Doc looked at the scan results and was able to diagnose me from that. They might not be able to do that with a femoral neck SF, but with the tibia, that should work.
Greg, my advice...get it checked out and take it easy...otherwise you're likely to end up on injured reserve like me.
What Nobby said about a large population of runners being over cautious I believe to be true.
On the other hand....to echo what rnwalker said.....Stress Fractures Suck.
I was diagnosed as having a full blown stress fracture late last September. Spent 2 weeks in a boot and then the next 6 with no running. At 8 weeks out a 5 min run still left me with a very achy leg and very tender in the location of the SF.
This is just my personal opinion......Save your money, whether it is a positive diagnosis or not the prescription is going to be the same. Take a break from the activity that is causing the pain. Was I ever thankful that I had a bike trainer and I am a swimmer !
My guess...and it's only a guess, since the tenderness goes away you have a stress reaction. A simple scale back may be all you need.
For me...it was painful to walk. A quick twist, an evasive move, a little hop.....and boy did I feel it. My SF was in my right tibia, distal 3rd...just above the ankle. The tenderness was isolated to a spot about the size of a 50 cent piece.
I may have had a warning prior to the actual SF but I wrote it off as a brusied shin because of a couple of off road bike spills in the weeks prior to the Marathon where it made itself very well known.
Good Luck.....Ice it, rest it.....4 weeks ain't going to ruin you.
No, you misunderstood slightly. I took a week off *after* the intervals & long run. I'm in the middle of that rest period right now. I haven't run since last Sunday. I may be stubborn but I'm not that stubborn! The knowledgeable friend is a doctor who sees runners very regularly. I trust his opinion. The timeline was like this: - very minor pain early last week - towards the end of that week I did the interval workout where there was more pain - I took a day off and did the long run where there ended up being a lot of pain - after the long run I took a week off - during the week off I spoke with the Doctor who recommended I take 1 week off. He said running on Sunday would probably be fine...
- during the week off I spoke with the Doctor who recommended I take 1 week off. He said running on Sunday would probably be fine...
Sorry, Greg; I did get your time-table completely wrong. But, believe me, so many people would do things like that, myself included. It's another thing I learnt years ago. When I first hurt my Achilles, I was always testing water so to speak. I was talking to Dick Quax, a former world record holder in 5000m, silver medalist in that event in 1976 and former coach at Athletics West. He asked me how it was going; so I told him that I did some strides that morning to see if it hurt... He laughed at me and said; "Yeah, sure... It's not hurting for a few days so let's make it hurt!!" A waiter would bring a plate for you and tells you that the plate is very hot so don't touch it. What do you do? Touch it to make sure he's telling you the truth!!? Not a smart way to make sure; but so many of us do.
My own little trick to see if it's possibly a stress fracture is to knock on the same bone. So if it's right above the ankle, knock on your shin. Yeah, stress fracture sucks--it is, afterall, a fracture on your bone!! And, because it's a bone and hard and connected, it vibrates and you feel the shockwave. If it's your tendon and/or ligament and/or muscle, say, if it's your Achilles, knocking on your calf won't really send any signal. If it's a fracture, you most likely do.
For me...it was painful to walk. A quick twist, an evasive move, a little hop.....and boy did I feel it.
Ditto. I would do the hop test, too. No mistaking it. It hurt.
Hang in there Rob! It will go by quicker than you think. I keep telling Mike the same thing with his shoulder and hip. He rolls his eyes and growls at me. He is planning to start biking next week. That should help.
I had a stress reaction in Feb. Had soreness (in the spot you describe)...that comes with regular training for about a week. My next 2 four mile easy runs there was a mild pain at the beginning of each run but went away eventually, so I still treated it as general soreness (I assumed post tib shin splints, since the pain went away); next run I had pain, not soreness, not tightness, pain by mile 4. It hurt to hop...but not to walk on, thankfully. It did not pass Nobby's knocking test! Took 3 weeks off until I could hop pain free...then built back up slowly.
Hope whatever your issue is it heals up soon.
It did not pass Nobby's knocking test!
But don't rely on any one test (unless it's a bone scan) - you really need to be honest with yourself about the pain level and how you feel relative to when you know you don't have any injuries.
I passed the knock test several times while evaluating an injury - told I probably did not have a stress fracture - found out much later that it was a double stress fracture both in the upper tibia....
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the number of moments that take our breath away...(unkown) • Go With The Flow • Thyroid Support Group
I wasn't optimistic and I was right. I took about 10 steps pain free and then the pain came on quickly. I guess I'll get this checked out to see if it's a fracture or just a "reaction." It's been 1 week of no running and it actually hurts more than it did (while running) last week.