Shin Splints

[Mike]

I am trying to help a coworker with shin splints.  This guy is a good athlete and a medic, kinda a special one... He is fit and has run alot, not realy ever more than 10 miles, except one Half Marathon.  He gets shin splint pain, on the inner sides of his tibia's.  He has gotten fitted for shoes, his gait has been assesed as a little long, but ok.  He has done all sorts of stretching, icing and all the standard stuff to no avail.

Is there anything that any of you have seen that would be helpful to try?  Something he could do or try?

Thanks for your inputs.
Mike

[Sasha Pachev]

- train 6 days a week - skipping days creates a surprise for the body when you do run.
- run the same mileage, but slower. No pace is too slow if you are running. Nothing wrong with 12:00 pace if that gets you through a run pain-free.
- eat better. No junk, particularly sweets. Up the intake of grains, fruits, and vegetables.
- sleep better. Bedtime curfew.

[Jon Allen]

Specific to shin splint pain- usually anything to reduce impact (i.e. run on grass/dirt not concrete, replace shoes when worn out, don't overstride, maybe reduce miles for a few weeks) is good.  I had them once and borrowed some compression socks that really seemed to help with the pain during running, too.

[Josse]

This is were I get shin spint pain.  I don't really get it anymore because at the first twinge of pain I start massaging them DEEP.  I also will scrape them on a regular basis.  I would recommend a good massage.  Also what Jon said as well is good advise.  Make sure the shoes are not to small you should have a good thumbs width betweent the big toe and the end of the shoe.  Make sure he is not heel striking as well.

[Lulu]

...make sure his shoes are not tied too tightly.

[Mike]

Thanks for all of the tips.  Unfortunately some things such as a massage are not possible at the moment because we are deployed, but maybe I can find a Doc to help.  Also we do not have any great areas to run, mostly on loose rocks or concrete sidewalks...

Thanks again and hopefully some of this works.

[Lucia]

I've been struggling with shin pain as well for the past 5 months - all the things above help a lot, but still it won't go away. I have noticed a big improvement following Josse's advice: apply ice and then massage them deeply while they're cold so it doesn't hurt so much. Slowing down helps too. I hope he feels better soon!

[Michelle Lowry]

I may have shin splints!!!!  But I don't think I deserve my own thread, that we can discuss the same injury in the same thread. 
I went to Dr. Brady today regarding a flair up of the injury I was feeling back in April, where there's pain around my inside ankle bone upward.  The way he explained this injury to me before was that it was tendonitis, from tight calf and hamstring muscles. Today he called it shin splints. I said, I thought it was tendonitis.  He said that's the problem with a diagnosis.  When he first was talking to me about it he was comparing it to achilles tendonitis, it was a tendon issue but not achilles tendonitis.  According to him, shin splints is a low grade stress fracture, and that whenever there is a stress fracture there is also tendonitis, that the bone, muscle and tendons are not in a vacuum so if there's a problem with one there is very likely a problem with the other.  So I need to read up more on shin splints because my pain is on the inside of my shin bone, and inch or two to the inside.  I thought shin splints was just on the shin bone, but he says no.   So do I have shin splints?  Can I increase mileage while dealing with this?  Perhaps this is just a one day flair up because of a treadmill run I did this morning after about two months of no treadmill running at all.

[Cutika99]

From dealing with high schoolers who generally up their mileage too quickly (not that this is any problem of the aforementioned), I have found only a couple successful ways of dealing with the dreaded SS. Neither of them do I like to do myself, but both have proven effective compared to everything I've tried.

Take this advice with a grain of salt, as of course every runner is different.

Here's what hasn't seemed to be as successful:

1) Running on grass or dirt. Seems like it should help -- I haven't seen it help.
2) Running at a slower pace. Maybe it's b/c there's more steps involved?  Maybe b/c the run is easy so the focus is on the pain? No success here in general.
3) Running through it -- maybe for a week, but generally ends up being quite detrimental.

Here's what has helped:

1) Getting on the bike or in the pool. I hate cross training more than anyone I know, but one week in the pool or on the pedals is an almost sure-fire solution.

2) Stretching, icing, massage, doing the ABC's with your feet -- and not running for 3 days. UGH

I don't endorse any particular strategy, and you'd have to tackle me to stop me from running, but these are what I have noted in the past 4 years of coaching high schoolers.

Steve

[Josse]

I have dealt with shin splints from a young age and the best medicane I have found is DEEP PAINFUL MASSAGE at least 3 times a week (I like the scraping as well) and ice, ice, ice.  I have always been able to run through shin splints by doing this.  You just have to get them early and be faithful with the massage and ice.  I am always willing to put you in pain:) 

[James Winzenz]

Michelle, that's the area that I generally have gotten shin splints in the past.  When I did my athletic training class, it was called posterior shin splints (go figure).  Icing and massage are important, as are easing off until it gets better.  I suspect that you may have overdid it coming back from tax season where your mileage, out of necessity, was quite a bit lower.  Our HS coach also had us do something where we would raise up on our toes, then rock back to our heels and lift the front of our feet off the ground to strengthen the tib. anterior.  As to the stress fracture, my general opinion (and experience) is that shin splints is more the tendonitis, or even an inflammation of the sheath around the muscle and/or tendon, causing it to pull away from the bone.  This in turn makes the bone take more of the pounding, which will eventually lead to a stress fracture if the cause is left untreated.  My least favorite thing to do for shin splints was the dreaded ice bath (just sticking my leg in an upside down wastebasket filled with ice and water up to my knee).  Hurt like the dickens for about 5 minutes, but then the leg went numb.  My own recommendation would be to cut back, do some crosstraining miles, run on softer surfaces (but not the track, 'cuz it rebounds and may do more damage at this point) and work the icing, massage and NSAIDS.  If it doesn't get better after a couple of weeks, you may want to go back in and have them do an x-ray (which may not catch a stress fracture) or MRI, if necessary.  Go look at Clay's blog back when he was dealing with this, there were lots of good suggestions, but ultimately you have to know your body and know when you have to stop and when you can continue on.  Clay ended up with a stress fracture and missed St. George.  If you don't get this taken care of, the same could happen to you.  Also happened to one of my buddies in High School track, and he missed the entire track season.