compartment syndrome

[nea_lin]

I found out that I have compartment syndrome in my lower left shin. It's quite painful, and it's preventing me from walking normally and running.
Anyone here have any experience with it, and if so, what did you do to alleviate it? Did it eventually go away on its own?

[blindsideflank]

seriously? have you injured it recently?
my experiences have this as a medical emergency so i must be missing something here, did you see a doc? if this is caused by an injury/burn it needs to heal, if this is chronic then maybe antiinflammatories but your doc should tell you this.

well dont listen to me though cuz i dont get it


if this is just edema then i think physiotherapists should be able to deal with this ( i dunno if you would seek a cardiac physio or what)

[carl.c]

"Holly ****" if you have compartment syndrom you need to go to the emergency room now. You will loose the leg if its not treated you need to have the presserue releived before curculationis cut off and tissue starts to die.

[nea_lin]

for real? lol. the doctor told me just to keep my foot elevated above my knee when I'm resting, and to take a break from running.

I thought maybe some other runners on here would have had the same thing. From what I hear, it DOES happen...

[carl.c]

are you sure he did'nt say shine splints ??

[nea_lin]

positive. i've had shin splints before...this is different

[carl.c]

Rest, elevation, manuel massage and anti inflamtors are the only thing you can do. If it persists your doctor can operate.
How did you get this injury?

[IntegratedFit]

My good friend had it, it just took some time, however if it is really bad you may have to have surgery done to reduce the pressure

[nea_lin]

Thanks for the replies...

The injury developed as a result of increase in volume of training. I ran all summer, but when we began to train again with the beginning of the semester, I guess my body wasn't quite used to it. I also replaced my shoes, because the ones that i was running in were worn.

Stretching and massage seem to help a bit. I'm supposed to go for physio within the next couple weeks as well.

[carl.c]

Well the problem maybe cronic compartment syndrom. Once the problem is gone you will have to approach leg training slowly and sytematic. Good Luck I know its frustating to deal with constant pain but it will go away.

[Landolox]

I just found out I have compartment syndrome in my left leg (tibialis anterior) too. Apparently there are two kinds, the names of which I am not sure. One of them can cause paralysis in your leg, the other occurs acutely from running or walking (especially inclined). The latter one, which I have, occurs about 10 minutes into a run and will go away minutes after sstopping, though tenderness will persist for a few hours later. Basically my tibialis anterior is visably pumped and tight as hell. The pain is pretty unbearable if I continue to run. To actually be diagnosed with compartment syndrome, my doctor inserted a guage into my rested leg to read the pressure. Then I ran on a treadmill for about 10 minutes and the guarge was inserted again. Im not sure of the measurement used, but I went from 35 to 105, which he clearly believed showed compartment syndrome.

According to the doc, the only way to fix this issue is to cut the tibialis anterior fascia sheath so that the muscle has more room to swell. The doc said that two small incisions will be made and I will have to be off that foot for about a week (i.e. on crutches). If you google compartment syndrome, you may come across some horrific pictures of the surgery. I asked the doc about these and he said that this was the way they used to do the surgery.

Anyways, hope this helps. Let me know if you want more detail

[PerfectFormForever]

You have chronic compartment syndrome. I had acute compartment syndrome my senior year of high school. I got kneed in the thigh, and within 6 hours my leg had swelled up huge, the pressure level was WAAAY too high, and I made it to the hospital about an hour before they would have had to amputate my leg (srs). They cut the leg open like a hamburger, I spent 2 weeks in the hospital, they drained blood the whole time and tried to repair the trauma that happened to the leg, and then I finally went home. The doctors were very confused because that kind of pressure normally only builds up in the shin/calf. I couldn't put weight on it for a month. But I did heal and eventually make it back to normal. I could answer more questions but I think our situations are very different.
I knew a friend from the Marines who got what you have. You can either rest/ice/elevate it and see if that fixes it. If not, you should probably elect for surgery to fix it for good. The fascia will be cut though, difficult healing process.

[Strainj]

I have chronic exertional (exercise-induced) anterior compartment syndrome in both of my tibialis muscle compartments. It has ruined my distance running and, to a great extent, my Army career (I can't meet the running time standards for Airborne School and Special Forces Selection). In the space of a few months my 2-mile run time went from 13:50 to 16:40, even as I increased my training volume in an effort to decrease my time. Eventually I will get surgery to correct the problem. The surgery is fairly simple; they make a small incision in the skin, slip a scalpel under the skin and slice open the fascia tissue. The surgery is said to have a high success rate and usually allows the patient to return to previous performance levels.

Symptoms: when my tibialis muscles get pumped up with blood, about 1/4 mile into a run or ruck march, the pressure in the compartments is so great that dorsiflexion of my feet (pulling the feet up toward the shins) becomes impossible. My feet then slap loudly on the pavement, wasting a great deal of energy and slowing me down. The tibialis muscles become sore, stiff and hard as rock, and I get paresthesia ("pins and needles") in my toes. Very different from shin splints -- the pain is more generalized, not as sharp and localized as with shin splints, and there is a very noticeable sensation of pressure (and hardness) in the muscle. The symptoms abate about an hour after I stop running or marching.

My best guess is that ruck marching caused this. I've been a bodybuilder and runner for most of my adult life and never suffered from this until I joined the Army 4 years ago at the age of 41. Marching with a 40 - 70 pound rucksack is the only activity I do in the Army that is very different from what I did as a civilian and that works the tibialis muscles a lot. However, running athletes who are genetically prone to the problem can develop it at anytime.

Surgery is not always necessary to correct this problem. A physical therapist told me that if I stopped running for 3 - 6 months, the muscles might atrophy and then not grow back so large when I started running again. Well, I did very little running for a year in Iraq, but when I got back and started running daily again, the problem recurred in about a week.

Advice: if you are experiencing paralysis or numbness in your foot, you need to push your physician to order a diagnostic test asap (which measures pressure in the muscle compartment) and you should try to get surgery. (And you really should see a sports physician or physical therapist if your general practitioner is hesitant to do this.) If it isn't that severe, I would advise you to try to manage it with ice, anti-inflammatories and massage for a couple months and see if that alleviates it. If that doesn't help much and it is seriously affecting your performance, surgery will probably be your best bet for getting back to peak performance. Bottom line, though, is that if your physician or PA is not giving you satisfactory treatment for the problem, you really should see a sports physician about it.

One last thought: I'm going to try a pair of Vibram 5-finger running "gloves". You land mid-foot with these, not on your heals, which suggests to me that you would activate the tibialis muscles less. I don't have high hopes that this will cure my problem, but it might help.

[lampaard1]

i think i have this compartment syndrome but dont know if its acute or chronic . i injured my leg back in 2004 , broke the tibia playing soccer.. well since then i have been running and playing soccer like three times a week and everything was normal , but at the start of this year i have been feeling this pain in the lower leg when i play and when i work and my performance has dropped because of this.. it won't go away with pills or rest.. and there is visible bulging of the muscle , a i need an answer please i am desperate...