The shin is a very important bone of the body and it doesn’t only aid in walking, but you engage it in a lot of spots too. Below is a guide to shin splints – a very common leg injury, its causes, whether you can play sports with this injury or not and should you see an orthopedic surgeon.

Shin Splints

The shin is the largest bone in the lower leg. It is also called tibia and shin splints is the feeling of pain and inability to walk, because of any damage or injury to the bone. Shin splints usually occur in people who play a lot of sports, runners, dancers, and even people who walk a lot.

Shin splints can occur when there is a lot of stress on your tibia and it causes a lot of pain – to the point where you can’t even walk and it’s very painful to put your body weight on your legs.

Walking, running, and even sports can lead to the building of tension and stiffness in the legs and the muscles and tendons of the tibia get overworked. This is what leads to shin splints in the long run and it can be very hard to deal with.

Normally, it can be treated with rest. However, if the injury is too severe, then you need to see a doctor right away because prolonging will cause major bone problems in the future. This is why it’s recommended to rest and not play any sports or overwork your legs when you’re suffering from shin splints.

Causes Of Shin Splints

There can be multiple causes of shin splints. Some of them are as follows:

• Running a lot can cause shin splints. This overworks the muscles and it can lead to unnecessary stress on the bones.
• Dancing or pivoting on your leg with all of your body weight can also lead to shin splints in the long run. This is bad because you don’t want your bone to break, and if that happens, then you will be advised to be on bed rest for a good chunk of time.
• Military personnel who walk a lot and spend most of their days on their feet can also suffer from shin splints. This is very common to occur in people who are either in the army or work on their feet a lot and shin splints become a very common leg injury.
• If you play sports that engage your legs, like karate or jumping, then it can also lead to shin splints, because your tibia can only take so much force and it can get injured, stressed, or can break in worse cases.

Symptoms Of Shin Splints

Now that you know what shin splints are, here are some of the common symptoms that you need to look out for. Identifying the symptoms is important because you don’t want things to get worse and you want to see a doctor as soon as you get the injury so that things can get settled.

Pain

You will feel a lot of pain in the inner side of the leg and the lower part of it. It can occur on its own or it can intensify when you walk, but the pain will be excruciating.

Walking Problems

You will not be able to walk. To protect your leg from the impact of pain, you will limp.

Sore legs

You will also feel soreness in the leg, especially on the lower part. It is very common if you try to overuse your already injured leg and it’s not good at all.

Loss Of Sensation In The Lower leg

In worse cases, sometimes the lower part of the leg, as well as the toes can lose sensation and this is bad because it means that the damage is extending towards the nerve endings now and it’s causing numbness in your leg. In this case, you need to see a podiatrist Woodbridge immediately.

Fracture

Fractures are also very common. They’re a bit different from normal fractures because the fractures in shin splints are stress fractures. They are a bit less in intensity, but the damage is more or less the same and you need to stop overusing your leg at once if you don’t want things to go south.

This is when you want to go and see an orthopedic doctor because things are not looking good and something needs to be done about this before things get out of hand and there is permanent damage.

Treatment For Shin Splints

Now, the most important step is to treat the shin splints. Here are some things that you can try:

Apply Ice To The Area

If your sports injury is not as severe and you haven’t broken a bone, then you should ice the area and give it a break for a bit. In a few weeks, everything will turn out just fine and you’ll be able to move and use your leg without any problem.

Avoid What Caused The Problem

You want to find the core of the issue and then try to prevent doing that. If you walk a certain way that puts a lot of stress on your legs, or if your weight is not equally distributed, then you need to go about this issue and rectify it once and for all.

Exercises

Light stretching and shin exercises are also great for you because they help to heal the shin and you will be golden in no time.

Medication

Pain medication is the best thing you can use to get rid of the discomfort. You can opt for simple over-the-counter medication or you can go for pain relieving injections and those work almost instantly and you feel no pain after the fact.

Managing Shin Splints & Sports

A very common question that people ask, when they’re suffering from shin splints is: Can I play sports with my injury? Well, the answer is no. You want to let your bone heal because even though the movement of the leg is beneficial, you don’t want to do anything that will intensify the condition of your leg and make it worse. You don’t want to make things worse than they already are and sports will unfortunately do that for you.

This is why it’s highly recommended that you give sports and leg activities a break and once your shin is healed, you can go back to your normal life and sports activities.

Care Is Important For Recovery

With bone injuries, you should not put any more stress on the injured bone, because right now it might not be broken, but it won’t take long to reach that stage.

This is why you want to properly let your leg rest because this is an integral part of your body, and if your tibia is extremely injured, then you won’t even be able to walk, let alone play sports. This is only going to be best for you if you listen to your body and rest.

Conclusion

Shin splints, even though they can heal, can be painful for the time being, so you must give yourself a much-needed break and get treatment suggested by a sports medicine doctor Woodbridge.