“What is wrong with me? Shins and hips”
I have had two problems over the past 6 years that are keeping me from living my life. I am a 20 year old 5'7, 152 lbs college student that lives a healthy lifestyle, but I can't do it much anymore. My shins have been in chronic pain since I started running cross country and track, causing me to have bilateral shin splints (inside of my shins). In 2017, it began preventing me from doing anything more than a brisk walk. The pain is entirely on the inside shins and goes from 3 inches below the knee all the way to 2 inches above my ankle. I believe the pain is on the bone or right near it, because that's where the inflammation appears to be. After seeing plenty of doctors, getting X-rays, bone scans, and MRIs, they concluded that I have a partial stress fracture in my right and major inflammation on the left (the MRI was in August 2020). Doctors just pass me around until they come out inconclusive and the cycle begins again. My shins both have the same pain level of a 9/10 at the worst and I'm just looking for more advice on how to possibly fix this. I've done all the treatments over these 4 years: ice, heat, loads of rest, many types of massages, electrodes (with and w/o ice at the same time), cupping, PT, chiropractor, scraping, every stretch, ultrasound, infrared laser, whirlpools, dry needling, shoe orthotics, bone supplements, etc.
My second issue is completely unrelated to my shins (or is it?). While working at Lowe's last summer, I was pulling a 500lb load of tile on a pallet jack truck (basically walking backward with the jack handle in my hands and facing the tile) and began to feel a pain in my hips days later that rivals the pain in my shins. It is more restrictive than my shins - I feel pain while sitting down now - and I've been to Physical therapy and chiropractors for this too. The stretches help alleviate it slightly but almost immediately after I feel the pain again. Another symptom is when I open my hips (while sitting down) as if I was manspreading, I feel pain the area where the femur meets my hip bone and it's a very dull pain. However, while I'm standing, I feel the pain in that area and also in the front left/right area of my body (lateral to my groin)
The reason I'm unsure if the two are related is because a chiropractor told me because my back is out of line (by 7 degrees), it could be causing me not to heal. However, I'm not going back to this chiropractor because my insurance covered like 8% of the $1300 I paid to them, so no thank you. My body just doesn't seem to want to heal anywhere below my hips so who knows, hopefully you can help.
My second issue is completely unrelated to my shins (or is it?). While working at Lowe's last summer, I was pulling a 500lb load of tile on a pallet jack truck (basically walking backward with the jack handle in my hands and facing the tile) and began to feel a pain in my hips days later that rivals the pain in my shins. It is more restrictive than my shins - I feel pain while sitting down now - and I've been to Physical therapy and chiropractors for this too. The stretches help alleviate it slightly but almost immediately after I feel the pain again. Another symptom is when I open my hips (while sitting down) as if I was manspreading, I feel pain the area where the femur meets my hip bone and it's a very dull pain. However, while I'm standing, I feel the pain in that area and also in the front left/right area of my body (lateral to my groin)
The reason I'm unsure if the two are related is because a chiropractor told me because my back is out of line (by 7 degrees), it could be causing me not to heal. However, I'm not going back to this chiropractor because my insurance covered like 8% of the $1300 I paid to them, so no thank you. My body just doesn't seem to want to heal anywhere below my hips so who knows, hopefully you can help.
Male | 20 years old
Complaint duration: 6 years
Medications: n/a
Conditions: Chronic shin splints, hip pain?
2 Answers
Anterior tibial compartment Syndrome
Thank you for the thorough description of your problems as this makes it somewhat easier to give you some assistance. There are basically three reasons that I have seen for people to have symptoms similar to yours. The first is as you suggested mechanical alignment abnormalities. This would include weakness in what’s called your kinetic chain which is essentially the muscles that go from your back down to your foot. It also can occur due to bony malalignment so small deviation in the back hips knees or ankles can lead to symptoms of pain localized to the inside of your calf. By your history I’m assuming you’ve done physical therapy for these problems and certainly 7° of bony alignment is not likely to cause these chronic problems. The second problem is those of either endocrine or mineral abnormalities. It sounds as if you’ve had these evaluated for basic of bloodwork and these are not the issue but if they’ve not been addressed then I would look into these. The third is what is known as chronic compartment syndrome this is where with chronic running or walking climbing you get severe pain localized to the calf and often times just to the inside portion of the calf. This is unlikely to cause a stress fracture but can cause a stress reaction on an MRI which looks very similar. If you’ve not been evaluated for chronic compartment syndrome then I would suggest you look into this. So in summary if your mechanical alignment is OK and your blood work is OK then to make sure that you have a exam for chronic compartment syndrome. If these tests have not been repeated in 6 to 12 months I would repeat some of them as often times the initial test will come back negative or mildly positive and then subsequently become more significantly positive.
Concerning your second problem. It certainly may be that you injure the tendons or what is known as the labrum of your hip when pulling a 500 pound pallet jack. Initially you would want to treat this with an x-ray to make sure there’s nothing structurally wrong and subsequently likely therapy to allow increased flexibility and strength. If this did not get overtime and an MRI of the involved tip would be the most appropriate treatment. Good luck with his complicated problem. I certainly would get several opinions of things are not continuing to get better.
Concerning your second problem. It certainly may be that you injure the tendons or what is known as the labrum of your hip when pulling a 500 pound pallet jack. Initially you would want to treat this with an x-ray to make sure there’s nothing structurally wrong and subsequently likely therapy to allow increased flexibility and strength. If this did not get overtime and an MRI of the involved tip would be the most appropriate treatment. Good luck with his complicated problem. I certainly would get several opinions of things are not continuing to get better.
