How long do shin splints last?

women helping man with sore shins

How long does the pain of shin splints last for?

Are you a runner? Then you've probably had or heard of someone with "shin splints."


If you don't know what shin splints are, you should go check out this article; however, for a quick overview, shin splints is an umbrella term for quite a few lower leg injuries. These can range from a biomechanical overload of specific muscles surrounding the shin all the way through to stress fractures.


The most common question we receive is how long do shin splints last? And, how fast is Solushin® in comparison to other treatment modalities? So, we thought we'd go through the literature for you, so it's all in one place. 

A quick recap on medial tibial stress syndrome

The most common form of shin splints is known as "medial tibial stress syndrome", which feels like a dull ache or burn in the lower third of your tibia's inside border. In medical jargon, the distal-third of the posteromedial tibia border.


By no means should you use the above as a diagnosis - confirm your diagnosis with a healthcare professional. The injuries that fall under shin splints all require different treatments and are ranging in severity. Better to get it right from day 1.


How long does it take to recover?

The time to recover is going to be tough to hear if you have medial tibial stress syndrome. A recent randomised controlled trial took between 250 and 300 days for 90% of participants to recover sufficiently to complete an 18-minute run! The average time to run pain-free for 18-minutes was between 102-118 days. These participants were undergoing the current standard in clinical practice: graded running programs; a progression back to full-load training.


How do you feel about having potentially 110-days to recover, but likely as high as 300 days?


We didn't think this was good enough. While one study highlights extracorporeal shockwave therapy as an adjunct to a graded running program, reducing this time frame to roughly 60-85 days, this is an expensive process and requires numerous visits to the clinic.


What if you could recover typically in 35-40 days with an adjunct therapy that requires no additional visits to the clinic. You can take control of your treatment.


Recover up to 9-months faster

The Solushin® is a medical device designed to treat medial tibial stress syndrome faster. In a double-blinded randomised controlled trial, all participants in the device group were at full-load training by week 5 (35-days). Meanwhile, the placebo group saw a similar return as mentioned above.


The Solushin® is designed for use at home, without immobilisation; you don't have to stop what you are doing to get treated.


Check out more on the easier and quicker way to treat your injury here.

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About the author:

Ben Lindsay is the Managing Director and engineer behind the Solushin medical device. A former national medalist swimmer, Ben aspires to learn from physicians, physiotherapists and podiatrists so he can develop tools to improve the quality of care for their patients.

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