Shin Splints: Cause and Treatment

You may remember shin splints from your younger days as the burning feeling in the shins after playing tennis on hard courts with thin soled shoes or after running around the neighborhood with your friends. As you grew older, you learnt to stretch and warm up adequately before exercise but shin splints can still occur.

Causes of Shin Splints

Medial Tibial Stress Syndrome, or shin splints, are a common injury that athletes and runners suffer from.

Shin splints usually appears as pain in the lower leg between the knee and ankle. This can be caused due to several overlapping factors, such as –

• weak core muscles
• uphill or downhill running
• running on uneven or hard surfaces
• improper gait
• improper footwear and worn-out shoes

All the above cause stress to the front of the shin and overuse from repeatedly lifting the toes while walking or running.

Alternatively, as your foot repeatedly hits a hard surface without proper support, the stress due to the impact is too much for the bones to bear and the tibia (the larger bone in the lower leg)may actually bend or bow from the resulting pressure. This causes shin splints.

Prevention of Shin Splints

To prevent shin splints, warm up and condition your muscles before you start any new activities. Focus on strengthening the bigger muscle groups, like hips and knees. Work on increasing flexibility in the opposing muscle groups. And don’t forget that proper footwear is vital to not only to your legs and feet health, but also your entire musculoskeletal system.

Shin splints develop as a dull or razor-like ache along the inner part of the shin. This pain may occur during physical activity and touching the affected spot can increase the pain. You may also notice tenderness, soreness, pain or even swelling along the inner side of your shinbone. Initially, the pain may go away when you stop exercising. But with time, the pain may persist and the condition may worsen and turn into a stress fracture, if leftuntreated.

Treatment Options for Shin Splints

It’s important to treat shin splints as soon as you notice that you can feel the pain or burning in your shin repeatedly.

Conservative treatments like rest, ice, and strengthening exercises before you resume strenuous activities, may help. Proper footwear and custom orthotics can be extremely beneficial especially if you have too high or flat arch. Physical therapy and strengthening exercises can help to improve how your foot strikes the ground and restore natural body mechanics.

Other treatment options include –

• foam rolls to loosen the tight fascia
• massage
• Kinesio taping to improve muscle tone, boost circulation, correct gait, and improve posture

If you are looking for the best foot treatment doctor in Phoenix, Arizona, call Oasis Foot and Ankle Center at 602-993-2700 right away.

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oasisfootankle Joined: June 25th, 2018