full image - Repost: Tibial Stress Fracture not healing- what are my other options? (from Reddit.com, Tibial Stress Fracture not healing- what are my other options?)
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I had a Grade 4a tibial stress fracture that was identified in early November and officially diagnosed in late November with an MRI. I was in a boot beginning in early November and then when the fracture was officially diagnosed I went totally non-weightbearing for 6 weeks, which was incredibly difficult mentally and physically. Got on calcium and vitamin D supplements as well. On 1/10 my ortho looked at my scans and gave me the ok to go back to weightbearing and to start PT. I'm still trying to stay off it- keeping steps under about 5,000 a day, still working remotely, no running or jumping. However, as we are loading more in PT I started developing a mild sense of discomfort and that has now gone to some mild pain in the fracture spot. I'm devastated because it feels like this is a big step back, my ortho and PT both say that the mild discomfort could be from the increase in loading but my doc is worried that it's back at the fracture site now. I'm terrified that the next option will be having to have a tibial nail surgery, which would require me to relocate out of state for a period of a at least a couple of months (I live in a different state than my family and don't have a strong support network here and would need to move back in with my parents as I recuperate), which would cause an the additional complication of having to find a new care team and also be out of work (I cannot do a large part of my job being out of state). I got the stress fracture through running and have resigned myself to having to give that up for good. Has anyone else experienced a hard-to-heal stress fracture? Was there anything that you think was helpful that you did other than going back to totally resting it and taking supplements? I'm feeling completely defeated right now.
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