About 6 months ago I mentioned to my doctor that I was having problems with shin splints. It was just kind of an “oh yeah, while I’m here” kind of discussion, and he just suggested taking it slow and building up my muscle. He sympathized with me being frustrated, but at that point I’d only been skating for a couple months so I said I’d try to be patient and thanked him for his advice.
Obviously, time and rest and taking it slow haven’t been helping. For several weeks now, friends have been pushing me to see a doctor about possibly getting Cortisone shots or muscle relaxants to help with my shin splints. I’ve been putting it off because I knew it probably wouldn’t be a quick and cheap answer, but this week I finally called and made an appointment with my general practitioner to talk about my leg issues again in depth more this time.
So Friday I went in, and as soon as I said why I was there, his face kind of went into this “we’ve talked about this before” look. I had to push to show him that I took his original advice, but surely there’s something more going on. I told him about how I’ve taken it slow. I’ve left practices early. I’ve taken a 3 week break on my own, and now I just took a 6 week break with our whole team, and every time I start back it’s exactly the same. I can skate for 10 minutes, and my legs start cramping. If 6 months ago I could skate for 10 minutes, and now I was at 30 minutes, that’s something, but I’m getting nowhere here.
He listened, then felt along my legs asking if it hurt when he did this or that. Can I push against his hands with my feet up, down, sideways. I told him nothing hurts right now, and my leg muscles feel like they work fine, but when I start skating or jogging or anything like that, my legs will get super tight to the point that I can’t tap my toe. That’s when he started using big words and pulled out this guy:
He said from what I’d told him, it sounded like Chronic Compartment Syndrome. He wanted to take a couple X-Rays before referring me to an Orthopedic Specialist who works with a lot of sports injury cases. So, we went over to the X-Ray tech (I really like this doctor’s office with a full X-Ray lab, bloodwork lab, etc. on site) to take some glamour shots of my legs. Haha, the lab tech lady was nice and we talked about roller derby while she worked out how to get the different angles she needed. Lucky for me, my legs are short enough to fit on 1 screen turned sideways, so it was only 4 shots and we were done. The doctor took a look at them and gave me some good news: My legs aren’t broken. Haha! He was looking for stress fractures or anything of that kind, but since my legs looked fine on his end, he went ahead and referred me to the specialist.
Since then, I’ve been doing a LOT of reading online about Compartment Syndrome. Basically, the group of muscles in the Anterior Compartment are too big for the casing (fascia), and with exercise, the blood and air flow through that group of muscles is cut off, which causes the cramping. Chronic CS is seen mostly in athletes, and it’s due to the muscle growing faster than the fascia can keep up. After reading so much about it, I think this sounds like exactly the same problem I’m having. After rest, the muscle relaxes and pain goes away. During exercise, the muscle is very consistent in how long it takes to cramp. Unfortunately, it seems most websites report surgery being the most effective treatment with other non-surgical treatments not being very helpful.
For now, I have an appointment set the Wednesday after Christmas, and I’m kind of looking forward to hearing what they have to say. A lot of people have said they’re sorry I got bad news about my legs, and I totally appreciate it, but at the same time it’s some kind of relief being able to put a name on what’s going on. It’s like having terrible headaches for months and finding out it’s cancer. That sucks hardcore, but at least now you can take steps to fixing it.
My doctor did give me a copy of my X-Rays to take to the specialist, which I of course made a copy of… so I’ll leave you with a boring X-Ray of my not broken leg. 
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