Meralgia paresthetica
4 watchers
12 Sep
8:02am, 12 Sep 2024
9 posts
|
Rosohatica
Hi all, I am a recreational runner (44 years old male), been doing cumulative 40 km per month during last five years, but recently I wanted to start prepare for marathon run, and all of a sudden I started doing cumulative 220 km per month. Transition was sudden. After two months of running 220 km I started to feel tingling, numbness and burning pain in the outer thigh of my left leg. burning pain is concentrated just above the knee. Just prior to having started having these sensations, I had a 6 hours long car drive with leather belt around my waist, as well as another ecd belt and of course car safety belt. Some say that too tight belt can cause this condition. Anyways, I am not sure if the belts caused it or the increased volume of running, but I already have this condition for cca 20 days. There are some exercises I found on the internet called nerve flossing that I started doing but no results so far. Regardless of the genesis of these annoyances, the fact remains that during the running the symptoms worsen, while in other activities like walking or cycling, I have almost no problems. The question is if someone of you had similar condition caused by running and what should I do, stop running completely or maybe this just goes away? Thanks in advance. |
12 Sep
9:06am, 12 Sep 2024
70,900 posts
|
Velociraptor
Welcome to Fetch, @Rosohatica. Sorry to hear you're struggling. Meralgia paraesthesia is an annoying and unpleasant condition, thought to be due to irritation of the lateral cutaneous nerve of the thigh. Often the actual cause isn't clear (tight clothing is sometimes blamed) but there's no reason to believe that running causes it or will make it worse. In most people it lasts a period of months (Dr Google will say 4-6 weeks but it's often longer than that) then improves or even settles completely. If running is too uncomfortable to enjoy and ordinary painkillers don't help, it would make sense to switch to activities that don't hurt. But you're not going to cause permanent damage if you choose to continue running. A physio consultation may be worthwhile. Some practitioners offer treatments which some people find helpful. |
12 Sep
10:32am, 12 Sep 2024
1,068 posts
|
Funky Chicken
Velociraptor wrote: If running is too uncomfortable to enjoy and ordinary painkillers don't help, it would make sense to switch to activities that don't hurt. But you're not going to cause permanent damage if you choose to continue running. This is good advice. One thing I would add, if you want to continue running during the recovery period, is that a phased run/walk approach might help, so that you can rein things in a little and more closely monitor how the knee is responding to it. I found this helped ease me back into running after a hamstring problem earlier in the year. You may also want to keep an eye on speed and cadence, and see if there is any correlation with aches and pains in the knee area. |
|
12 Sep
1:20pm, 12 Sep 2024
10 posts
|
Rosohatica
Thank you both for the suggestions. The thing is that I don`t know how it will behave on Marathon I have in October. I went to Half Marathon two weeks ago and I decided to stop after 8th kilometer because of the burning pain. Not because it was unbearable but because I didn`t know at the time what it was, I didn`t have diagnosis yet. I guess I need to test it out on some longer distances. Today I have short 5k race so I will see and let you know how that went and if any conclusions can be drawn from that. The therapist did suggest to try changing cadence. I had been fighting my cadence for months before this injury. My "natural" has been 155. I managed to get it to 165 over one year period. I guess I should aim for even more.
|
|
12 Sep
9:14pm, 12 Sep 2024
11 posts
|
Rosohatica
Hi, the 5K went ok. I finished it with average pace of 4:13. Burning pain above knee constantly came and went away.
|
Related Threads
-
Knee arthroscopy
Nov 2021
-
Erm, any doctors or physios out there?
Oct 2021
-
Doctor, Dentist or Pharmacist?
May 2021
-
MRSA
Jul 2011
-
physio/osteopath/chiropractor/doctor
Jun 2011
-
Quick question for the GPs, pls
Jun 2011
-
Have you fallen asleep in an MRI scanner?
Jun 2023
-
Phone only works when held in my hand or resting on my thigh???
Jul 2022
-
verrucas or is it verrucae?
Jun 2013
-
Recovering after a microdiscectomy
Jan 2012