Not the ideal result…
This week
Tuesday morning I had the appointment with the doctor to find out the scan results. Based on the doctor’s initial thoughts last week and my own research, the result was what I expected, a stress reaction in my left femor.
It was interesting reading some posts on letsrun.com forums from other runners who have had femoral stress reactions and fractures. Very similar symptoms to what I have experienced:
- Muscles tighten significantly around the stress reaction/fracture site perhaps to protect the bone from as much force absorption as possible. – I’d been experiencing tightness through the front of my hip, quad, hamstring and shin.
- Starts with a dull ache that cannot be massaged out or really pinpointed in a muscle. – I’d been to the physio 3 weeks in a row, massage release was helping a little to free up the hip but not really solving anything, and I had difficulty pinpointing where I was sore with different muscles feeling sore at different times.
- When starting to run the first 10-15 minutes are pretty painful but something you can run through, once you get moving the pain almost entirely goes. – This is exactly how it felt for me, and made me think it was muscular or tendon soreness as the pain would go once warmed up.
Eventually it got to the point where it also starting getting sore to walk on, but again after walking for a bit would warm up and feel alright. If this was to happen again I think I’d still have a hard time picking it as a stress reaction rather than muscular or tendon soreness.
So while I expected the result of stress reaction, what I didn’t quite expect is how much recovery time is needed. 3-4 months of no running, 4-6 weeks no cross training, and I’m on crutches for 2 weeks to properly take the load off my left leg and let it heal.
Depressing news finding out it will be so long since I can run again, and feeling sorry for myself slowly hobbling around on crutches. It’s amazing how much harder everything becomes on crutches, I have a new appreciation for anyone with a disability or injury that prevents them from walking. Simple things that you take for granted become almost impossible like getting a coffee takeaway and grocery shopping. And things like opening doors, walking down the street, carrying anything become quite hard.
But I have to try to look on the positive side – at least this was caught before it became a full fracture, could have been worse especially since I continued to run through the pain for a while. Plus it’s good the the issue has been identified and now can focus on healing and coming back to running stronger.
Sunday an awesome run from Mechelle at Victorian Masters Championships. 5000m in 21:00.07 and second place I believe – fast!!
Coaching
I can’t run myself for a while so I’m going to have get my running fix through others achievements – like Mechelle’s 5km result!
I’m now officially a level 1 recreational running coach and planning on doing level 2 soon. At the moment I’m doing running programs for 3 people delivered online which has been an interesting experience so far.
Debbie has been really committed to the program and her training and consistency paid off on Saturday with a 5km time trial at Maribyrnong parkrun. One of her goals was to break 25 minutes for 5km with her previous best as 26:03 in November last year. So it was really great to see her result of 24:49!! Huge PB!
Coming up
Sadly the stress fracture rules out Gold Coast Half Marathon and most if not all of cross country season. The focus right now is just on resting the leg. I’m taking that seriously and minimising the load on my left leg as much as possible. So crutches to get anywhere and also minimising driving, as the left leg gets a lot of use with the clutch.
Longer term there will be a plan worked out between my physio, doctor and coach. Starting with hip exercises non-weight bearing with low load, focussing more on low level control and deep hip muscle isolation. Back to basics!
Summary
| Week | Phase | Runs | Km | Hrs | TSS | Fitness | Fatigue | Form |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Rest (Injury) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 33 | 5 | 28 |
| 3 | Rest | 0 | 0 | 0 | 85 | 39 | 16 | 22 |
| 2 | Base | 5 | 47.3 | 4:14 | 366 | 47 | 47 | 8 |
| 1 | Base | 3 | 28.2 | 2:31 | 285 | 46 | 34 | 19 |
Always enjoy reading your blog. It’s good your doing all the right things to get better. I’m sure you will enjoy coaching. Very proud of you.
Thanks Mum
Hello, thanks for posting about your stress reaction experience! I was wondering how you recovered from this injury? How long were you on crutches for? I have been trying to recover from a stress fracture since 9/5/18 and my MRI on 11/23/18 showed that I have a mild stress reaction at the proximal femur around the lesser trochanter. So I guess my stress fracture “healed” to a stress reaction? I have been resting for almost 12 weeks, my bones are so slow to heal. Still a long way to recovery! Thanks 🙂
Hi Steph, is it weird to say it’s nice to hear from someone else who has experienced a femur bone stress injury? Not that I wish it on anyone else but it’s kind of nice to hear from someone else dealing with a similar injury.
I was on crutches for six weeks total, 2 weeks with no load at all on that leg, 2 weeks partially load bearing, and final 2 weeks only using for longer distances. Following that it’s been a slow process, I did quite a bit of pool work.. walking in the pool, to pool running and swimming. And also strength exercises from my physio. I started walk/jogging in July (3 months after injury), and by late September had worked up to 30 minute continuous jog.
At the moment I’m running 3 times per week and just over 20kms for the week. Which is nice but still well off where I was and I’m finding I still have to be careful. The leg can still feel a bit achy at times, last week I had an offloading week, half the week off running and cross trained instead and that helped. So still a slow process getting back to proper running volume. I think my bones are slow to heal too.
Would love to hear more about how your injury happened and how your recovery is going. Mine seems like it may be related to posture and I was doing a hard training phase with a lot of speed work at the time.
Thank you for your post! You are the first & only blog/article/journal that I’ve come across that pretty much pinpoints EXACTLY my symptoms. I had felt tweaks here & there in my left upper thigh working out, but on May 5th of this year, the pain came and stuck. I figured it was just muscular and didn’t take much rest, just thinking the muscles were a bit inflamed. Pain continued though just as you describe, and impact especially got to the point where it felt like someone was jamming a rod up my thigh. I stopped all intense cardio 2 1/2 weeks ago and started physio. However, just like you, though the massage & muscle manipulation felt good, I didn’t feel like any of it was addressing the deep pain. Fast forward to yesterday and I saw an Ortho Dr. He ordered an MRI and sure enough, I have a stress reaction, compression side of my left femoral neck. He immediately put me on crutches for at least the next 4 weeks, with no weight-bearing allowed until I follow-up in a month’s time. At that point he’ll assess the injury before taking the next step (no pun intended). I’m so bummed I can’t do my cardio, and with COVID, no pools are open to do water exercises. All I know is if stress reactions feel as horribly painful on impact as mine does, I don’t want to know what the full fracture feels like! I’m on Day 1 of crutches and I’m already feeling muscles in my shoulders I didn’t know I had – that – and my hands are throbbing. Like you, I’ve quickly gained respect for all those permanently requiring devises to help them move. Thanks again for sharing your experience. I’ve read article after article and yours is truly the only one to match my symptoms near-perfectly!
Thanks for leaving a comment Victoria. I’m always interested to hear from others who have had femor stress reactions of fractures. Your symptoms do sound very much the same as what I had! Exactly the same as my experience having it treated with massage, which felt good short term but didn’t resolve the problem. I remember when I was put on crutches after getting my scan results, I could barely make it the short trip back to work it was so tiring. The crutches will start to feel easier though the more you get used to using them. They do make it hard to anything though!! I was on them for 6 weeks, but the last two weeks I was allowed to lightly weight bear on that leg.
Yeah that’s frustrating you can’t use the pool, my physio had me walking and doing exercises in the pool after 4 weeks and then after 6 weeks I moved to pool running, light spin bike, body weight strength exercises and walking, and I also starting doing some swimming. It does make it harder not having the pool option with COVID but hopefully you’ll be able to start some walks and some light biking in not too long.
It did take quite a while to get back running properly, but the good news is I’m running 5-6 days a week these days and seem to be holding up ok. I still get a bit paranoid about my left leg though and tend to be more cautious with my training these days.
I also know another girl who had a stress fracture (yep full fracture) in her femoral neck. Around the same time as mine in 2018. She made a great return and is running better than ever now!
I would be interested to hear any theories on what you think caused yours? My physio had me work a lot on strengthening certain muscles and also relaxing certain areas. I think for me it was a combination of training too intensely (too many hard sessions with not enough recovery) and not having the greatest running form.
Wish you all the best for your recovery, it sucks but there’s light on the other end!
Hey Ben, glad to hear you are back to running at full capacity again. I have a compression side femoral neck Fracture which was diagnosed in July went on crutches for 6 weeks then since my pain has gone apart from the odd niggle. Had my MRI follow up results today and it’s still there which is strange considering I have no pain. The next step is to just leave it and no impact sport for 3 months till they review it with MRI again which is bloody frustrating. How did you friend go did she need surgery? I feel like there’s a lot of variance of healing times with peoples lifestyle factors etc
Hi Sinead, sorry to hear about your fracture. That’s so frustrating having 6 weeks on crutches and still needing 3 months away from impact sport. My friend Amelia had a stress fracture in her left hip (femoral neck). I believe she had crutches for about 10 weeks total and then was able to slowly build back with cross training and strengthening. I don’t think she needed surgery but I might share your comment with her to see if there’s anything else she can share.
My stress reaction happened over 2 years ago now and while it’s been fine I still get paranoid about it. Back when I was seeing the sports doctor he was very cautious with my return to running. I never had mine re-imaged but just worked back to impact very slowly.. pool walking > swimming > walking > light strength work/stairs > hopping/jump rope > run/walking. When I started run/walking I had a few setbacks where I felt like I would start to feel it again and have to drop back a bit and try again. Eventually could keep building back to proper running but I still get paranoid about it my left leg even now even though it’s been fine.
During your recovery and you had a few setbacks, how would long would you drop back for before you would try again? I have recently been cleared to start “running” every 3rd day starting at 1 min and building up. When I got to 10 min I am starting to feel it. There’s not a ton of literature out there to figure out how to pull back and how long to wait before starting up again.
recovering from a femoral shaft stress fracture. Three months to finally diagnose – mainly swam while determining root cause. 6 weeks on crutches. 6 weeks of no-impact sports so aqua jog/swimming/spin no resistance.
Hi Jennifer, good to hear that you’re on the way back. I remember being pretty damn excited when I could start running again and I started at just 30 second jogs!
I definitely had similar issues as you, with increasing the running load I had times where I would start to feel it again which was pretty concerning and frustrating. The approach my physio took was to manage the load, so if I started to get some achyness then we’d drop things back a little. Sometimes this was dropping back the running load, while had other cases where we left the running load but would say drop weight training that was I also doing. I think there were also cases where I took an extra day or two off. It felt like two steps forward, one step backward at times but eventually got back to running full weeks and sessions and racing again.
Your treatment also sounds very similar to mine, I had 6 weeks on crutches but probably closer to 10 weeks of no-impact sports. Anyway sounds like you’re on the way back which is great, it’ll probably still be a little frustrating for a while but I’m sure you’ll continue to see progress 🙂
Hi Ben, our symptoms and experience with PT are exactly the same. I have a femoral stress fracture and I described the same warning up and no pain phenomenon as you to my sports doctor which I think he found hard to belief but it was the hopping test which confirmed his diagnosis later backed up my MRI.
I am into week 3 on crutches and have been suffering now for 8 weeks. Being realistic I am not expecting to run for 3 months and not at my previous level for many more months. I am nearly 60 and was running 60 km a week 5k approx 20 mins 1 mile 5 min 50
Are you now fully recovered any any subsequent issues ?
Thanks for the blog
Hi Mon, sorry to hear about your stress fracture. It’s certainly a frustrating situation to be in. The sports doc kept me on crutches for 6 weeks and it was about 3.5 months until I got the OK to do walks with short jogs. Although I did feel like this sports doc was very conservative. From about week 5 I started rehab exercises and walking in the pool, then transitioned to cycling, pool running and swimming. I think the rehab and cross training is important and also good to be able to keep doing some kind of exercise while being unable to run.
I’m fully recovered now and haven’t had any major injuries since (touch wood). I’d just say I still get a bit nervous about reinjuring that leg so I tend to be more conservative and haven’t fully pushed my training as hard as I did before getting injured. I would like to get back to running another marathon which I’m considering doing next year. At the moment I’m running around 50km per week with no issues.
Best of luck with the recovery!
hey thanks for all posting this , I am another femoral neck stress reaction patient ! I was only diagnosed last week after an MRI, I don’t have crutches so must be less severe than you guys.
However its still very worrying- I easily could have rested a while, not worried so much aboút the pain and continued, not seeking doctors advise – however there was one run I did where the pain was so severe, I realised this is just not normal!
I have been told to not run or do any high impact/ weight bearing exercises on the left leg – no actual time span given yet.
Next week I have an xray to check bone density / plus bloodwork to check vitamins. I am currently swimming and light walking less than 3 miles at the moment ( I find it very tough to do nothing and also do not think that is healthy) , plus plenty of rest. it does ache in the morning and it aches towards the end of a walk.
I am still very cautious as the pain has been on and off with me for quite a few months (since March) and just want both legs to be equally strong, so I can return to my running and my yoga (ashtanga vinyasa)
Its really hard to know what is currently too much activity , I’m wondering if I should not be walking at all, the doctor said light walking so I am following his advise.
It sounds like perhaps this does not automatically get better and needs quite a lot of time, care and patience – so I am grateful for all your insights here.
I do hope you are all healing well.
Hi Lucinda, sorry to hear about your stress reaction. Not a fun thing to go through. That’s interesting you haven’t had to go on crutches but like you said maybe yours isn’t quite as bad. My stress reaction was towards the middle of the femur rather than at the neck, maybe that also makes some difference.
I would probably dial your walks back a bit if it’s aching towards the end of your walk. It’s not unusual to experience a little bit of aching but if it’s happening every walk I think that could be too much. I know when I was coming back from the injury I had times where I’d feel achy after walk/jogs. With the physio we would drop things back a bit when that happened, maybe take a day or two off. Frustrating to do that but it seemed to work for me.
Hope you can get back to your running and yoga soon!
Ben, THANK YOU for sharing your recovery journey from femoral stress reaction! I was diagnosed with a femoral neck stress reaction in mid July after months of pain that I thought I could somehow push through. I am a marathoner and ultra-runner, aged 61 and initially the doctors attributed my pain to arthritis in my hip and recommended I see a PT. Thankfully, my physio recommended further investigation into the problem. She said I didn’t get arthritis overnight, and pointed out that I’d been running for years without incident, she suspected it was a femoral head stress reaction and sure enough-that’s what I’m dealing with. I’m still not allowed to run yet–just walking, cycling, and strength training, but I’m slowly getting better and I may get to start run-walking a little in a month. It has encouraged me to read about your progress Ben! There’s not a lot of information out there about this injury and what is out there is not very positive. Congrats on all your hard work to be able to run again and to everyone else dealing with this. Patience is hard but will pay off in the long run.