What's great is that you get to learn along with your "fellow" as they present the case to their clinician and talk about you as if you're completely not in the room at all. So I went to UPMC Sports Medicine today about my shin pain. The fellow did his exam and then presented my case to the specialist. She asked him bluntly, "So what would you do?" He lays out a plan full mostly things I expected: more ice, more rest, more stretching, orthotics for my shoes etc.
Her: "Yes, that's all correct. Good thoughts. Except she has formed a good bit of scar tissue .." Him: "Ohhh! an MRI!" Her: "... you can feel it all right along here *presses her fingers into my left shin hard enough to make me see stars* it's like a string of nodules - very subtle - so I'm going to order an MRI to see what all is going on inside there"
Me: "Wait. Back up. Did you say MRI?"
So she explained that my pain is in fact "just" good old shin splints (aka medial tibial stress syndrome) and the imaging will help her both put together the treatment plan as well as tell me how long I'll be out of commission. It was refreshing to hear them put together a plan instead of just tell me "Well if it hurts, stop doing it" or "you just aren't built to run" - all things I had heard before!!! The doctor made my goal her goal - to run the Pittsburgh half marathon in May. She commented that she'd be there running it with me. "Only if you get me back to training in time!" I reminded her. She's confident that I'll still have plenty of time to properly train! Yay!
So the offending MRI is scheduled for Saturday and she didn't actually say anything about whether or not I should stop running for now so... I'll just go easy tomorrow *wink*wink*
Oh - and in training news, I did run a quick mile this morning before my Beachbody work out - I ran my one mile block in under ten minutes for the first time ever - and it didn't even feel difficult! Hopefully whatever goes on with my shins, it won't stop this momentum I've built!!
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