Sunday, November 12, 2006

Crutches, MRIs, Icing, and Swimming

For a couple of weeks I've had nagging pain in my shin that I brushed off as shin splints. A little ice and a little extra stretching, and I figured it would pass. It didn't. My last run was on Thursday, November 2nd - 2.8 miles in 27 minutes - actually pretty fast for me. The problem was, with every footfall that pain in my shin was sending shockwaves through my leg and the throbbing continued for about 45 minutes after my run. The next day, I called the doctor and stopped running.

I actually swam that Friday night, alone. There's an intern at work who needs help with her swimming technique, so she and I have been meeting at the pool a couple days a week to practice. Just a little bit of cross-training for me. Something different, and a way to strengthen my shoulders again. Perfect. Now I guess it's my primary form of exercise.

The doctor did a battery of tests on Friday, x-rays and manual tests. Nothing showed up on the x-rays, but that is to be expected as stress fractures normally don't.
Apparently some of her other tests gave her reason to think it probably is a stress fracture, though. Also, she checked out both ankles and determined that I have some extenive ligament damage from all those sprains I've had, and it's likely that when I get back to running I'll have orthotics to correct each one - and the damage is different in each.

Sometime this week I'll be having an MRI to determine whether this is a stress fracture or just a stress reaction. Until we know, I'm on crutches for partial weight bearing. Once we know what's going on, I guess it'll be a boot or an aircast. Until then, I'm crutching, icing, and swimming...