Dr. John's Health Matters

June 19, 2009 (Healthzone.ca) —There’s a fine line between being ultra fit and overdoing it. And sometimes, that fine line is even visible – a slight hairline crack in a bone, commonly known as a stress fracture.

“Stress fractures in runners occur, for sure,” says Dr. Tommy Bacher, a committed weekend athlete, runner and family physician in Scarborough. Stress fractures are difficult to detect on X-rays. “You need a bone scan,” says Bacher. The cracks commonly occur in the weight-bearing bones of the lower leg, ankle or foot.

They can happen because bones are weakened by osteoporosis, because improper technique puts more stress on a particular bone or simply from overuse: when muscles become too fatigued to absorb more impact, the stress gets transferred to the bones and the bone fractures slightly. Healing the break, to the great dismay of amateur athletes addicted to their sport, usually requires a break from the activity for some six weeks.

No athlete ever wants to stop, even for a day, or to lose the level of performance that’s been built up over weeks and months. But by neglecting problems, by pushing too much and not allowing the body to heal, even more can be lost.

Says Bacher, “I tell people, `You can never get more fit in one day but you can wipe out an entire season in five seconds.’”

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