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‘Shin splints’ is the more common name for Tibial stress syndrome.
 
This is a frustrating injury that limits your ability to run, jump, walk and play sport and is just plain painful. The good news is that it can be easily fixed with the right treatment. Avoid the “rest, wait and see” approach as you will waste your time and become frustrated with a lack of results. Here’s why……


 
There are two different types of shin splints – one being medial tibial stress syndrome and anterolateral tibial stress syndrome. Both conditions are fairly similar, with a slight difference in where pain is felt and often the cause is different.
 
Most of the time shin splints appears when you increase your activity level. This might mean an increase in your running or even just going on a holiday and doing more walking than usual. When this extra load is placed on your body, any problems with  your biomechanics become more evident.
 
You can feel pain around the shins, usually worse when you start moving after a period of rest and then it eases once you get moving. Sometimes you can even feel pain at rest if the condition is bad enough.
 
The pain is caused by a combination of muscles pulling on your shin bone and pain in the tendon that attaches to your shin bone. This increased load on the tendon and bone is often caused by a biomechanical dysfunction in the leg, foot or core muscles or a combination of these.
 
So often people are advised just to rest until the problem eases and then return to activity. This advice can cause a lot of frustration as generally your pain will return with your return to activity as your underlying biomechanical issue hasn’t been addressed.
 
Each person with shin splints needs to be assessed to work out what factors are contributing to the problem and then these problems can be addressed and fixed.
 
That’s where we come in!
 
We see lower limb conditions like shin splints regularly at Aushealth Physiotherapy and our patients get great results. Following a thorough biomechanical assessment to ascertain the cause of your shin splints, our treatment may involve:
 

 

  • Advice on finding the right level of activity
  • Strengthening of weak muscles
  • Movement retraining
  • Core exercises
  • Stretching
  • Soft tissue releases
  • Joint mobilisation
  • Balance retraining
  • Acupuncture
  • Advice on footwear
  • Prescription of orthotics

 
Treatment is different for each person and our Physio’s at Aushealth will do a thorough assessment to identify what you need.
 
If shin splints are stopping you from doing what you love, don’t just rest and wait and see if it gets better on its own? Give us a call on 9905 0048 to make an appointment and get back to what you love doing sooner and more safely!