Shin & Tibial Pain

I discovered Sarno's method when recovering from hip pain (torn hip labrum, surgery etc). I have had a relapse of pain in that hip and successfully resolved it by remembering my methods (and with the help of this forum - simply reading threads and success stories is helpful).

I'm an endurance runner and I have a certain amount of headspace packed in with stuff around racing, anxiety over performance, dangers of the sport, long term longevity, etc. There is a lot there that I am not even considering as well I am sure.

I have had a few instances in my past where I ran through pain and developed Stress Fractures in my shin area and lower tibia. This is almost a "nuclear bomb" type of injury as it completely shuts down all training/running for a period of 6 weeks while the bone heals.

Because I've experienced this before, I have a fair amount of fear of this same injury recurring. Needless to say, pain in this area "gets my attention" quickly.

However, looking at things from a Sarno/TMS perspective, I realize my mind also knows what "gets my attention" too. Thus I am beginning to think that the pain I am experiencing in that area is simply the symptom-imperative finding a new spot now that my hip no longer works for that purpose.

It's tough to get my mind to accept it though because I've been down this path before. It's a bit of a paradox or a conundrum for me. I'm not sure how to work through it. If I push through the pain and it IS in fact a bone-stress-injury I'll incur a stress fracture and be out of the game for 6 weeks.

So far, journaling and meditation and mindfulness ha sot solved this shin pain like it did in other areas. There are some signs that it is TMS but I guess I am too fearful of the possible outcome to take action.

This post is as much therapeutic as anything (I think I'm helped by publicly journaling sometimes) but I appreciate any thoughts and comments, thanks.

 

good insight there

I would say Yep to this. It's important to get any new symptom checked out, and then decide, even if they find something, whether or not you'd rather treat it as TMS. I know, the hard part about doing this is the fear that they WILL find something, and that you'll be led down some kind of treatment path that might or might not work. But what's the alternative? Continued doubt does not lead to healing, so you have to find out, one way or another. And sometimes, you just need to let something heal.

My two cents!

 

This thing has persisted for another 2+ weeks since my initial post. I think I need to get it checked out, but stress fractures only show up on bone-scans and/or MRIs. For many reasons I am afraid of what will actually show up, but I think this kind of situation is different from the typical TMS situation but then that's what we always think isn't it? Ack!

 

I saw a local orthopedist, a doc I have trusted in the past and he evaluated my situation and said he did not think it was a stress fracture/reaction or bone-stress-injury. But since he only reviewed an xray and agreed xrays are not ideal for evaluating Stress Fractures (they don't show up on xray - only on MRI or bone scans), he said he'd need to further evaluate later if I don't improve. He would use ultrasound to perform a bone scan which is generally pretty effective at detecting these bone stress injuries (but not as good as MRI).

I am really wrestling with this situation. I'm actively in practice with TMS methods (currently reading Ozanich's book, have read all of Sarnos, listen to Nicole Sachs and Eddy Lendensteins podcast etc) so I am almost too aware that there is the possibility this is "just" TMS working my brain over. However my history with this particular injury gives me pause (and my mind knows that).

Part of me wants to go back and do the ultrasound with the ortho to rule out the possibility but I'm not sure I'd be satisfied with that result either.

 

Update on this:

The pain had persisted for another couple of weeks after my 2/18 post above, I had reduced activity and even felt it when cycling (which makes sense as I had read that any weight-bearing activity was bad for Stress Fractures). I was doing a ton of therapy for it, including submerging the entire foot/shin into a bucket of ice water frequently during the day. Still I was feeling pain when walking, and even stabs of pain during the night while trying to sleep (a hallmark of stress fractures).

So I scheduled an MRI and had that last Friday 2/28.

Fortunately I got the results pretty quick, my doc texted me 2/29 in the AM to say that it came in all clear. I went for a run that afternoon for 4m and felt perfectly fine. The next day I ran almost 9m and felt fine.

I've been fine since!

This was an odd case where getting evidential proof from the doctor actually helped my case. I was worried that *something* would show up on MRI even if it was TMS but thankfully that was not the case.

Ironically, now that my shin/tibia is all better I have had a relapse of pain in my hip (where my previous surgery) so the symptom imperative is at work here but I know what this is and can deal with it. My mind knew that I was stress-fracture "averse" though and it found a good spot to exploit that with making me think there was an issue when it really wasn't. I still need to get to the bottom of what stress/anxiety/anger is prompting all of this though, that's the part I have difficulty with.

Hopefully reading this will help some others that have this same type of pain and in the same area.


TL DR - It was TMS all along.

 

This has proceeded to resolve itself completely but my hip pain has been back with a vengeance. I'm going to transfer thoughts and diary entries over to that thread but thanks to those reading and to JantheCPA for responding in this thread.