Stress fractures are most found in weight bearing bones, such as bones of the foot and lower leg bones. They are tiny cracks in the bone, often not able to be seen on an X-Ray.
How Do You Get A Stress Fracture?
You can get a stress fracture from overuse or repetitive stress on an injured joint. The people that are at the highest risk of getting a stress fracture are long distance runners, track athletes, or men and women in the military. The most common cause is a sudden increase in your training, such as training for a marathon or entering the military and going on longer than normal hikes. Being overweight or significant sudden weight gain can also cause stress fractures. Stress fractures are simply what the name implies, excess stress on a bone.
How Do You Prevent A Stress Fracture?
The best way to prevent a stress fracture is making sure you’re wearing proper shoes, getting proper rest days between training, and easing into an intense training program if possible. Of course, feeding yourself properly so you get all the vitamins and nutrients your body needs.
How To Treat A Stress Fracture?
Stress Fractures, like any other break, take about 6-8 weeks to heal. The complicated part about stress fractures is that often times you can still walk, and you do not receive a cast so many people return to activity before it’s fully healed. This is problematic because it can lead to further, more serious injury or arthritis down the road. It’s very important not to weight bare for the duration of the 6–8-week period.
Why are fractures more painful at night?
You might notice that pain is worse when you’re trying to sleep at night, or it may wake you up in the middle of the night. There are a few reasons for this:
During the day a hormone called Cortisol is released causing inflammation. The increase in blood flow brings healthy cells to fix the damaged cells. During the night, there is a drop in the stress hormone (cortisol) so less blood flow is going to area with the healing properties, causing an increase in pain.
Synovial fluid is a liquid present in all joints of the body. It acts as a lubricant to allow smooth movement of the joints. It also helps reduce swelling and pain when it’s flowing around. At night we tend to move a lot less, so this fluid is moving as freely around the joint, so unfortunately the fluid pools, and increases inflammation and pain.
Pain is physical and mental. During the day we generally have lot of distractions from pain, so the pain perception is significantly lower. But when we are laying in bed, there are no distractions from the pain so the consciousness or sensitivity of pain heightens.