What are Shin Splints and are they serious?
Shin Splits are an umbrella term for general pain in your shin region. The most common cause of Shin Splints is a condition known as Medical Tibial Stress Syndrome, or MTSS.
Medial Tibial Stress Syndrome is classified as an overuse injury and will often occur when someone increases their physical activity load quickly. Pain is often along the insides of the shins and very tender to touch
What is MTSS?
Have you ever experienced pain at the front of your lower leg? It could be MTSS.
MTSS is a condition relating to the tibia, which is a bone in the lower leg, and the muscles located along the tibia bone. This condition is frequently referred to as “shin splints” because painful symptoms are experienced at the front or inside of the shin bone.
MTSS is considered to be an overuse injury and frequently occurs when there is a change in load (activity) that the body is not accustomed to. Each tissue in the human body whether it be bone, tendon, muscle, ligaments all have a certain capacity. If our tissue capacity is exceeded this is when injuries can occur. In MTSS, the muscles along the tibia become fatigued and damaged. This causes an increase in forces along the tibia bone, which then causes inflammation to occur within the tibia bone. This inflammation causes a lot of pain. This process, along with the weightbearing forces from ground contact all contribute to the inflammation and pain developing
Exceeding our tissue capacity can happen when training or undergoing physical activity if intensity, duration, volume, distance, recovery time or frequency is changed too quickly for what the body can handle.
It is for this reason that MTSS is very prevalent in the athletic population who undergo physical activity or sports involving lots of running and jumping such as basketball, netball, athletics football, tennis, soccer etc
This condition is, however, not limited to people who participate in sport. This may happen to somebody who has had a change to their daily routine and they are now undergoing more activity. For example, if someone went overseas on a holiday and did lots of walking or changed job to working on a hard surface such as concrete this could potentially lead to MTSS.
There are a number of risk factors for developing MTSS including:
- High levels of activity
- Increase in activity load
- Pronated (flat) feet
- Previous injuries to the foot, ankle or leg
- Tight or weak calf muscles
- Tight or weak shin muscles
- RED-S
- Shoes
- Poor nutrition or health
- Poor sleep
- Bone density issues
- Occupation
Treatment options for MTSS:
- Activity modification or loading programs
- Taping-feet and/or shin
- Calf and shin muscle strengthening
- Foot strengthening
- Foot orthoses
- Prolotherapy
- Shockwave
- Footwear modification
- Dry needling
At Bayswater Foot and Ankle Clinic our podiatrists are well trained to diagnose and TREAT medial tibial stress syndrome using all of the above techniques.
It is important to get assessed by a Podiatrist as there can be many causes of shin pain that can have the same symptoms as MTSS.
