Shin Splints

[Hawks]

I have them. And I don't run really. I go to college at Michigan Technological University and we have a good number of hills on campus, and my dorm is the farthest from the main campus. I give myself plenty of time to walk to class but my shins are absolutely killing me. A quick google search suggests that my issue is due to pronation of my feet (I have super flat feet) and although I wear decent shoes (Mizuno running shoes), I guess I need to look into different ones.

 

However, foot pronation doesn't really explain my awful pain during ice hockey, because the skates are different and all of that. I play goalie, and my coach has us do skating drills for half of practice, and most of the time I can't manage it because my shins hurt so much. I try to stretch them but that only helps for a short period of time. I have calf sleeves that I got, and they help a little bit, but not enough to 'make it go away'.

 

I will be calling the sports injury clinic and seeing if I can set up an appointment. I figured if you all had any experience with this it might help a bit, but rest assured I am going to a doctor when I get back to college (on Thanksgiving break).

 

Any advice on getting rid of the pain, not causing any more damage, whilst continuing to just walk around campus and hockey twice a week? Something that I thought might be interesting is how the Vibrams might help me, apparently running barefoot is supposed to be better for you, does anybody have experience with that? (I'm probably going to hit up the shoe store with the people who know what they're doing tomorrow).

[Ginger_Warrior]

I'm not a physiotherapist so I can't really help on that side of things, except to say RICE during hockey practice if it comes too much, and also don't postpone getting it seen to by a professional. Shin splints are usually caused by tears and bruising to the tendons surrounding the lower leg and if you continue to push hard on a leg suffering from them, the tendon will eventually cause a small fracture in the bone because the damage means they can't support the forces going through them any more, so if it's causing you this much trouble, don't "carry on", because it will make it worse in the long term.

[decebal]

How long have you had shin splints?

 

From what I remember about shin splints, the only real cure for it is rest. If you really need put force on those tendons on your tibia and you can't rest, then try to see if you could get somebody to give you a shin splint tape job, but that is just temporary.

[Estonian dude]

I didn't know what are shin splints or what is the thing that I am having, but now after reading about it, I realized I've had them too.

They occur whenever I start dunking and mostly on my left foot, since it takes most of the shock. Last year and the year before it, I had to take some weeks off practices because of the shin splints. And now I have them again, after just 2 months of practices after over 3 months of rest...