Tibial Stress Fracture Once 'Healed' (Read 764 times)

Hey guys. It's been a loooong time since I last wrote in....was diagnosed with a tibial stress fracture at the very top of my tibia in June, but hadn't run since mid May. I've given it 5 months of healing and have recently started running again. My question is this....for those of you who have had stress fractures before, even once they were healed, could you still 'feel' where the break had been? You know how you hear stories of how amputees can still 'feel' their missing limb? Well, this is kinda what I'm talking about. No pain at all in the leg. I think my running style is smooth (not favouring one particular leg) and I'm able to run for up to half an hour at a time without any probs (haven't run any longer than half hour because I'm kinda lazy ). But even just sitting down after a run, I can 'feel' the break...no throbbing and I can't feel any swelling. Is this normal?

I sat out with a stress fracture for 7 weeks earlier this year. Shortly after I returned to running, I started to feel symptoms similar to yours. While running I would feel no pain at all (as opposed to before it healed, I'd mostly feel the pain while running), but for a day or two following the run I'd feel a warm, tingly feeling in my shin, which almost felt like I was wearing a very tight knee-high sock. Not exactly pain, but enough to make me go back to the doctor. The doctor noted that a second bone scan would be inconclusive because it takes about 6 months for a stress fracture to fully heal, during which time it would still show up on the bone scan. But instead he felt that I was experiencing minor shin splints from not having run for some time. I started a regimen of doing toe taps daily, and ice massaging the shin immediately after every run, and the issue went away pretty quickly. In your case, I'm guessing your 5-month hiatus has turned you back into a beginner, and as such you're going to experience a lot of beginner aches and pains as you ramp up mileage.

Thanks, guys. I was experiencing much the same things as described here. I feel better in knowing that others have this phantom-type discomfort as well. Like Perfesser said though, if the feeling worsens, as it did for me earlier in the month, you're probably ok. I'm gonna give it a go again tomorrow morning and not work myself up as quickly as I did earlier this month.