How long take stress fracture to heal?

How long take stress fracture to heal?

We see stress fractures inactive people in athletes all the time, it can be runners it could be team sport athletes like soccer players it could be you know cross country and track at the high school level and it can be of the upper body you know the shoulder and elbow you see in you know baseball pitchers.

You see it in people that play tennis these are really common injuries and they can really shut down. your ability to play sports the way you want or exercise the way you want so we have to do whatever we need to do to get them to heal and so in today. I want to discuss that very question you know somebody with a stress fracture. how long does it take to heal and how can you know hey this isn't working? we need to go a different direction okay Heidi in North Carolina asks I'm a runner and I was diagnosed with a proximal close to the knee tibial stress fracture by MRI I've had symptoms for over a year I stopped running because it hurts I've followed all the precautions.

I don't bend past 90 no kneeling and obviously no running jumping etc that pain has improved. somewhat but it's still there with specific activities 10 weeks after diagnosis. I'm concerned that it isn't healing is there a time limit for this kind of healing after this long should I just consider surgery. I feel like my current doctor is being too conservative and I just want to get healed and back to my normal routine.

Well, Heidi, it's a terrific question, and it's really what I know a lot of people with injuries not just stress fractures but any injury they worry hey is this healing fast enough. but you know you're wondering hey should I bail on the non-operative treatments and go straight to surgery the first thing. about most stress fractures is that you can get them almost always to heal without surgery there are some of what we call high risk there in areas that don't typically heal very well you know there's a couple area in your foot that is that way there's your lower part of the leg in the middle of your shin. 

That's certainly that way there's even a stress fracture near the hip that a lot of times we'll talk about fixing right away especially in really active people. but there's a lot of stress fractures that if you just modify activities maybe you stop the offending activity like running maybe you put somebody on crutches for a little while or in a boot that's enough to get it to heal. what Heidi is talking about is what we call the tibial plateau that's the top of the tibia right below your knee and that area typically a stress fracture heals, very well because that's what we call cancellous bone. it's a softer bone that typically remodels and heals a little bit faster than the bone in the front of your shin which is cortical bone. like, I said earlier those stress fractures in the middle part of your shin are really risky for not healing so you have to be really aggressive you know a lot of times we'll make somebody completely not weight-bearing sometimes we'll even fix it by putting a rod down the center of the bone. we certainly do that if it doesn't heal but it's really rare for the tibial plateau stress fractures again up higher close to the knee it's really uncommon for those not to heal now. 

It maybe not running for a period of time it may be yes using crutches even to get it to heal. but those almost always heal how long well you know everybody's a little different in how they heal typically we think somewhere between six and twelve weeks is enough time to get these to heal. but you may still find the pain you know four weeks after that and again it's not just symptoms that we use to help determine if it's healing or not that's why you know Heidi may feel like she's having a lot of pain but I think it's worth asking the doctor. how well this is healing you know getting follow-up x-rays sometimes even repeating the MRI to make sure that it goes on to heal it is important to know. if it's full healing but not just because what she's asking do we bail and go a different direction like surgery. but also so you can know when it's safe to go back to sports to go back to exercise. 

So you don't basically cause the same injury that you just had earlier and recovered from if you go back too soon you potentially could cause a new stress fracture so there's a lot of questions. those are very good questions to ask if you have a stress fracture to ask your sports medicine doctor or your orthopedic surgeon. we through teen follow-ups to make sure that your stress fracture goes on in heels okay have you suffered a stress fracture and how long did it take you to heal what was the treatment was that something you needed surgery for or were you shut down completely from your sport or your exercise and basically how did it go.