# Have you had this injury? Inside of left leg, about 3 to 4 inches above your ankle



## getagrip (Mar 26, 2008)

*Have you ever had a bone contusion on your shin? It sucks!*

Last Friday I went for a later in the evening bike ride. I was wearing a tank top, but thought its really cold so I went back to my apartment to put a long sleeve shirt on. I was clipped into the pedals, came to a slow stop in front of my apartment door, and because I had a few beers earlier in the day, didn't react quick enough to unclip, so I fell over to my left, still clipped into the bike. I can't remember if I fell straight onto the street, or into the curb by the street, on the nearby rock garden, or a combination of all three, but I thought this really hurts! I shook it off, ran up stairs, put my long sleeve shirt on, ran back downstairs, jumped on my mountain bike, and went for a 16 mile street ride.

Honestly, during the ride, I didn't notice my leg much. I was more focused on how cold it was. When I got back to my apartment, I ran up stairs, took a quick shower, and went swing dancing. I can't remember exactly when I started limping, but I do remember limping into the swing dance place. I asked a girl to dance, and several mnutes into the dance, noticed that it felt like someone was hitting me with a hammer each time I planted my left left leg. So, I had to end the dance early, and limped off the dance floor...

When I arrived to the swing dance place, I remember showing off my leg injury to the girl I was dancing with. Its just kind of a macho thing. Shortly after the dance, I noticed that the swelling had increased. When I touched my leg, it felt like I had a half raw potato inside of it - yes, it was a pretty big lump. I figured I'd go to the doctor on Monday if my condition worsened, but after limping around the next day and most of Sunday, I noticed that I was not limping anymore on Sunday night, and the swelling had gone down some. So I thought no big deal.

Well, fast forward to last night, when I went on a 23 mile gravel ride. My leg still bothers me. I can still walk without problems. Riding my bike feels good. But my leg still hurts, but I notice it mainly when I'm just sitting here at work, or walking, but not so much on the bike. Its still swollen, but it feels more like a small potato wedge now. I'm wondering if I really jacked something up or if this is common with this kind of injury. I know, at the very least, I bruised my bone. Maybe I did worse though. I'm tempted to go to the doctor, but I just hate going in there, get an X-ray, pay a medical deductable, only to discover that no internal damage was done and that I should just rest it for a few days and ice it. So, my question is:

Has anyone else had this kind of injury to that part of your leg?

I'll post photos if anyone wants to see the damage. I can deal with the pain and all - not that big of a deal. Its not that bad - mostly just kind of annoying, and doesn't effect my mobility. I guess I'm wanting to hear from people who have had a similar injury and it turned out that nothing was wrong - or people who had a similar injury and it turned out that they severey jacked something up, and were too stubburn to go to the doctor when they should have.


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## mimi1885 (Aug 12, 2006)

It'd most likely be from dancing

You fell on your left leg there's injury there, then went on to do a longish ride to further intensify the injury after the ride went to do another activity. It's normal. Rest and see if it gets better.


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## zebrahum (Jun 29, 2005)

The internet is not a reliable source of medical advice. Most of the time, it's not even a reliable source for bicycling information. I would suspect it would improve if you rested it, but without knowing what you did to it you won't know how long you are supposed to rest. Maybe you'll rest for 2 weeks but you would have needed to rest 3; well then you re-injure it and you're back to the waiting game; this continues until you get a proper diagnosis or you rest for an appropriate amount of time.


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## ou2mame (Apr 23, 2010)

i've hurt myself... sounds like you hurt yourself, in my opinion.. lol.. take it easy and stop drinking before riding


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## getagrip (Mar 26, 2008)

ou2mame said:


> i've hurt myself... sounds like you hurt yourself, in my opinion.. lol.. take it easy and stop drinking before riding


That's good advice. LOL

I'm ashamed to say this, but it was PBR, about 2 or 3 hours before the ride. Only time I usually drink while/before riding is when I go on the Taco Ride on Thursday night, which is pretty much a party ride in the Omaha/Council Bluffs area. Usually, I'm drinking something much stronger and better tasting than PBR, and I've never had a crash on the ride, even when going 15 to 20 miles per hour in the dark, after drinking beer AND margaritas! Here is an image of the event:


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## ou2mame (Apr 23, 2010)

lol the way its stitched together there's like ghost people walking around... is that what it looks like when you're drinking? 

i've definitely ridden drunk before. i rode to a fair once, only a few miles away... had friends houses in between, kept stopping and drniking stopping and drinking... woke up with a broken pinky and a skinned knee after that lol.. i dunno what happened, but i kinda remember falling face first doing a front manual


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## getagrip (Mar 26, 2008)

ou2mame said:


> lol the way its stitched together there's like ghost people walking around... is that what it looks like when you're drinking?
> 
> i've definitely ridden drunk before. i rode to a fair once, only a few miles away... had friends houses in between, kept stopping and drniking stopping and drinking... woke up with a broken pinky and a skinned knee after that lol.. i dunno what happened, but i kinda remember falling face first doing a front manual


Hopefully you weren't going 1/2 miles per hour while clipped into the pedals. That's DEADLY! lol I've fallen 3 times like that in the last week!

Just noticed the "ghost people". They were probably drinking PBR...


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## ou2mame (Apr 23, 2010)

i can't imagine.. i tried clips... not my thing lol.. i'm too stupid


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## getagrip (Mar 26, 2008)

ou2mame said:


> i can't imagine.. i tried clips... not my thing lol.. i'm too stupid


Clips are only dangerous at really, really, really slow speeds. Otherwise, they are awesome! :thumbsup:


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## getagrip (Mar 26, 2008)

For those who are curios, I've uploaded a few pictures of my injured leg. What really odd is that the first picture shows my original injury, while the second and third pictures show my injury after waiting a couple of days for the original injury to heal. So, the injury seems to get worse as time progresses. However , the worse the injury "looks", the least amount of damage it seems to cause, at least, as far as I can tell.. The injury hurts much worse toward the upper part of the calf of the first photo.


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## AndrwSwitch (Nov 8, 2007)

Did you get the girl's number?

Chicks dig dudes who can dance. Definitely gotten me a lot more action than anything sports-related.


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## getagrip (Mar 26, 2008)

AndrwSwitch said:


> Did you get the girl's number?
> 
> Chicks dig dudes who can dance. Definitely gotten me a lot more action than anything sports-related.


Well...I actually know her and have her number. In fact, about two months ago, she asked me to go on the Taco Ride with her and some of her friends because she knew I was a biker. That day she introduced me to her boyfriend. LOL


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## getagrip (Mar 26, 2008)

Looks like the images didn't load from the post I made earlier, so I will try this again. Take a look at how my leg changes from "not that bad looking" on Saturday to "oh crap, that looks bad" from yesterday. The funny thing is that most of the purple colored sections don't bug me that much. In fact, I didn't even notice I had a bruise on my foot until Monday, but the odd thing is that the purple colored section of my foot didn't start bugging me until today. 

After Thursday night's Taco Ride, I've decided to take a total of 5 days off the bike to rest my leg. I will ride again on Wednesday and Thursday of next week, and will ice my injuries every day until then. I'm taking a road trip to Boise Idaho next weekend, and I really want to be able to ride when I'm there...I don't want to reaggravate my leg before my trip. 

What sucks is that in spite of the fact of riding about 2,000 road miles this year, plus 30 to 40 hours on mountain bike trail rides, I'm not in the best shape right now and ideally would have liked to train a little more over the next 5 days to prepare myself for all of the climbing I'll be doing in Boise. Oh well, I guess you have to listen to your body and be nice to it when you are injured. 

Anyway, here are the gruesome photos of my leg from Saturday, Monday, and yesterday. The injury that bugs me most and my main concern is the one that is highest up my leg above my ankle. Most of the purple sections, as you can see, slowly appeared, starting on Monday and got worse looking as the week progressed.


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## R+P+K (Oct 28, 2009)

I'd seek professional medical help for that.


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## getagrip (Mar 26, 2008)

R+P+K said:


> I'd seek professional medical help for that.


Thanks. I haven't ruled out visiting the doctor, but I'm going to wait until at least Monday. Honestly, the pictures make it look a lot worse than it really is. The evil purple looking sections are the areas of my leg that hurt the LEAST. I've ridden roughly 68 miles since the injury, and I can walk and run without any problems, other than a little pain. While I don't recommend anyone follow my advice here if they had the same injury, the fact that I can do all of the physical activity that I can tells me this isn't that serious. Since I've been icing my leg again today, the "main" injury seems to be a little less swollen than it was earlier. I haven't given my leg much of a rest since the injury, and I think mimi1885 was dead on when he/she said,

_"You fell on your left leg there's injury there, then went on to do a longish ride to further intensify the injury after the ride went to do another activity. It's normal. Rest and see if it gets better."_

Now, I could be wrong about all of this and I could be shooting myself in the foot here, but I think I'll be ok. It would be nice to know if I knew more of the extent of my injury, but the truth of the matter is that with most sports injuries, you either let the injury heal on its own with rest, ice, and perhaps a brace of some sort to keep the injury immobile, sometimes with the aid of a prescription, or the doctor cuts your leg open and fixes what is structurally tweaked. The main risk of not seeking medical attention is that you don't really know if there is anything structurally wrong or not, so I'm a little in the dark there. I will say that had I been limping all of this past week, I would have definitely sought medical attention. I was really hoping someone would come along here and say, "I've had that injury", but apparently, most people who have fallen over at 1/2 mile per hour while clipped in walk away unscathed. LOL


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## getagrip (Mar 26, 2008)

After wavering for more than a week about whether or not I should see a doctor about my injury, I finally decided to go. After taking 2 x-rays, the doctor concluded that I had no broken bones, that I definately had a contusion, and that I might have a sprained ankle. The good news is that he gave me the ok to ride after a couple more days rest!

One thing I will say about anyone else who someday finds themself in my predicament is that after doing some research, I found out that the main risk for this type of injury (other than the fact that your arm or leg might be broken) is that it could get infected, and if that is the case, its BAD news. That's pretty much what promted me to have it checked out after reading an article online about some guy with a similar injury who ended up in the hospital because of an infection.

The doctor didn't really have too much new to say about treating it, other than to wrap it. I had already been icing it and taking Ibuprofen. I have not been doing a good job of elevating it, so I will try doing more of that tonight.

Anyway, I hope no one reading this gets this injury, but if you do, because of the possible infection factor (and broken bone factor), I'd suggest getting it checkout out, rather than trying to tough it out like I did. It sucks having to pay medical bills to find out pretty much nothing new, but I guess that's better than having something worse happen as a result of not treating it properly.

Oh, and the doctor recommended riding without clipless pedals for a while!


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