I’ve probably written about a dozen or so posts about my leg injuries in the past year. It hasn’t been fun, and while I thought that physical therapy was finally my solution–apparently I was wrong.
My shin pain goes back to the beginning of October 2012, when I got out of a ballet class and practically had to wobble home because of the pain–I had to call my boyfriend to pick me up from the train station. It seemed to get better for a while, but running/walking on a treadmill was painful. I got it checked out, got an x-ray, was told to stay off it for a month or so with a diagnosis of tendinitis. I had a couple of bad cases of the flu and didn’t do a whole lot of ballet during the month of December and January with the holidays.
In February/March, the pain started acting up again when I got back into the swing of things. I had more x-rays and even a bone scan. But nothing. I stayed off it for 8 weeks. I failed at running a 5k thanks to my shin splints. I finally listened to my body and took it easy, gradually increased my running. Things were going well.
Then slowly it got gradually worse. My leg was moderately unhappy after doing the color run in old sneakers. There was an off week where it felt pretty bad, but a week off helped tremendously. But after the Rescue Run 5k I decided to go back to the ortho and was prescribed PT.
PT went well. Before my most recent ortho check up, I had a somewhat rough ballet class and my left calf and knee seemed really tight to me, so I mentioned it to my new ortho doctor (the one from September moved offices) and because of the pain he wanted to do an MRI. I wasn’t even sure I was going to get one, but when I got an appointment for the same day, I got it done. Then a week ago (the day before Thanksgiving–after fainting at a blood drive, no less), I got a call telling me I had stress fractures. One in my left leg, and the start of one in my right.
So now I’m off my legs again for 6-8 weeks while they heal.
Kudos to you if you’ve read all of that! For now, I’m looking for recommendations as to no- and low-impact activities I can do from home. I’ve already had some recommendations, so I’ll be writing a post about what I’ve come up with and tried soon. I’m also trying to read more, write more, and maybe even do some crocheting of some legwarmers to keep myself occupied.
What have you found to work for coping with injuries?
