Milwaukee Foot and Ankle Surgeon See Stress Fracture Increase in Endurance Athletes

Our Milwaukee Podiatrist Reveals Stress Fracture Causes, Prevention and Treatment

What Causes Stress Fractures?

Our Milwaukee foot and ankle surgeon knows stress fractures are one of the most common and feared injuries of endurance athletes. Stress fractures occur in the lower extremities and account for approximately 15% of all endurance exercise injuries. Stress fractures are often very painful, but normally the pain is only experienced while walking or running. This differs from normal fractures which are chronically painful, even while resting.

Read below as our Milwaukee podiatrist outlines the most common causes of stress fractures:

• Overuse
• Obesity
• Osteoporosis
• Poor Athletic Footwear (most often—worn out footwear or footwear which does not best serve the needs of your foot shape or the way you move)
• Poor Nutrition (most often–not giving your body the right nutrients it requires to maintain endurance activities)

Our foot and ankle orthopedic doctors in Milwaukee have seen a strong rise in the numbers of patients coming in with stress fracture injuries. This is consistent with what other Milwaukee sports medicineclinics are seeing as well. This rise in endurance-related stress fractures is primarily due to the increase in people starting weight-bearing endurance exercise, including running half-marathons, marathons, triathlons and other endurance events like soccer, basketball, football and volleyball.

Stress Fracture Prevention: Our Milwaukee Podiatrist Explains How You Can Help Prevent These Painful Setbacks

While our Milwaukee podiatrist encourages exercise in nearly all of our patients, we advise a graduated incremental plan. Our Milwaukee foot doctors certainly appreciate the enthusiasm and passion involved in starting a healthy, life changing exercise regimen, but the body needs to be conditioned before tackling such strenuous endurance activities.

Jumping in headfirst without proper conditioning is what our foot and ankle surgeons of Milwaukee normally see in the stress fracture injuries. Being overweight also contributes to stress fractures, as running can put additional stress on your joints–anywhere from 6 to 8 times your bodyweight! This means if you weigh 200 pounds you are putting over 1,000 pounds of pressure on your joints. Even well-trained athletes need to be in tune with their body and not over train. Endurance exercise and events such as marathons are certainly admirable, but they inevitably put added stress on your body making you more susceptible to injury.

Stress Fracture Treatment Modalities: Our Milwaukee Foot Doctor Explains

While our Milwaukee foot doctor recommends starting your exercise regimen off slow and eating a healthy and protein-packed diet, sometimes stress fractures are simply unavoidable. Our foot specialists have decades of experience treating a variety of stress fractures in all patients: male and female, young and old, avid athletes and sedentary patients.

When left untreated, stress fractures often lead to further injury and other complications. When necessary, our Milwaukee foot doctor performs a variety of diagnostic tests to determine the severity of your stress fracture. These non-invasive diagnostic tests may include an:

• X-Ray
• Bone Scan
• MRI
• CT Scan
• Range of Motion Test

Our Milwaukee podiatrist performs basic diagnostic tests to determine the precise location and level of severity of your fracture. Range of motion tests help determine the degree, type and location of the injury. X-Rays may be required to rule out possible broken bones. If our Milwaukee orthopedic doctor suspects any ligament, joint, tendon, or soft tissue is injured or damaged we may arrange an MRI and/or CT scan. Based on these results our Milwaukee foot surgeons will determine if surgery is necessary.