Calf

Hi, I am an expat living in Shanghai and visiting Doctors here is a huge frustration, explaining symptoms and getting the correct treatment is difficult so I was hoping to get feedback from here. I started running in the summer after a very long break and ran slowly and gradually and built up distance to around 30k a week, I was also playing tennis and netball. Since my early twenties (now 44) occasionally I get a tight, stretching feeling and tender to touch just above my right ankle, sometimes brought on by exercise sometimes for no apparent reason. I rest for a couple of days and the pain eventually goes. About 2 weeks ago I had the same sort of pain but further up the leg which was was also tender to touch and my calf muscle was also painful and painful to stretch. I have iced, and rested for a couple of weeks but unfortunately as soon as I try a little exercise the pain comes back, any advice much appreciated.

The symptoms seems aggravate when you have activities...

Yes the symptons are aggrevated when I exercise tho I have exercised very little of late, mornings is worse as well.

Worse in the morning is common in the case of inflammation. In your case this would be chronic inflammation. Being tender to touch would indicate that it's a bit more superficial and in the muscle. The pain has been in the achilles before, but now it appears to be more of a chronic strain of the muscle. From the very short description it sounds like you have a chronic inflammatory condition. An Assessment would be wise to get it sorted. Often the reason for these things to continue for long periods of time is poor biomechanics around the ankle wether it be due to overpronation or something else and orthoses fitted fix this would help to settle your condition... this theory is strengthened by your previous achilles problems that came on for no apparent reason. Apart from orthotics you would be wise to get started on a stretching program for the muscle and begin to strengthen it so that it can handle the daily stressors you throw at it and eventually return to sport.

Good luck,
Pudding

Hi pudding_bowl, thank you for the diagnosis and advice. You are spot on with the 'poor biomechanics' I have for some time now wore orthotics in my trainers because I over pronate, they are maybe 6 years old now so i'll look into getting these changed. I'll look into physiotherapy and advice on stretching fingers crossed the docs here understand and my health insurance covers it! Thanks again, much appreciate.

6 years is well outside the time limit you can expect an orthoses to last. The simple 'formthotic' will last around 6 months and a casted orthoses generally will do max of 2 years. So I suspect that you have long since worn through your previous orthoses. The stretching you'd be advised to do are the long and short calf stretches. Google them and do them twice a day. Stretch for 30 seconds and DON'T overstreatch or you will aggrivate the condition. If you feel pain your going too far, you should feel stretch before pain if you feel pain before stretch don't push any further into the range over the 30 seconds

I will of course google the stretches and have looked into new orthoses. Thank you again for taking the time to respond to my request, much appreciate, regards.