Lower leg pain from Snowboarding.

[Tycho B]

Hello all,

I've been snowboarding for over 10 years now, but in the last 3 seasons, I'm living closer to a hill and have been getting out more often. In these last 3 seasons I've been having some pretty horrible pain in my lower legs. By the end of the season, it all but stops me from riding without loading up on pain killers, and even then it can be vision narrowing. Normally leading me to have to sit out a couple weeks at a time to heal up.

I'm 5'8" and the pain is about 3-5" above my ankle on the outside of my leg (inside my boot). The Fibula I believe, but perhaps it's a tendon or nerve issue. The first couple days of the season it doesn't bother me, but with frequent riding the pain comes on quickly. I thought it might be due to my last pair of boots and bindings, so I bought new gear for this year, and unfortunately it's back after only 4 days of riding this season. It's not horrible yet, but I can tell with a couple more days of riding it will be back to ruining my days on the hill.

Is it possible I've broken or fractured my Fibula and didn't know a couple years ago, and it healed incorrectly? When I run my finger up from my ankle along the outside of my leg (particularly the front leg, which hurts the most)I notice an indent right where the pain is.

Just walking around, or even jogging, it's hardly noticable, but to touch it, the pain is intense, and once I'm strapped into my board if I lean a certain way , land hard, or hit a lot of choppy snow it can get VERY bad.

I had a lot of hope that it was just my boots wearing out from last year, but clearly it isn't. The first and even second day on the hill was great, I was pain free, but now after the 4th the pain is clearly back and threatening to ruin my favourite past time. Any insight into this? Snowboarding is what gets me up in the morning!

Thank you for reading and for any replies.


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[pudding_bowl]

There's the possibility of stress fractures from a high impact sport (depending how hard you ride) and maybe a prev fracture - you tend to know if you have broken your fibula but as it doesn't take most of the weight in the leg if you a tough guy you may have broken it without realising it was broken. So Get an X-ray to rule those things out!
Everything you mentioned could be possible causes of pain, it could be muscular (prob more likely than a break)
Sounds like you better go get a physio appointment for further assessment there buddy.

[Perbast]

You should have your leg assessed - X-ray and have it looked at by a PT. I agree with other input - the condition you describe sounds like you could have a fracture. The fibula is not directly weightbearing - which explains that u r painfree walking normally, the palpation sharp pain could indicate the fracture. Have it assessed before you continue.