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On holiday, Took a short drive to wells next to the sea and within 2m of leaving the car felt a sharp cramping pain from right calf. Now walking like Captain Sir Tom and can't put pressure on pedals to push down. Seems to have not been caused by anything.
Ordered a calf brace to support, done R.I.C.E. etc
Supposed to be leading a ride tomorrow night, now looking doubtful and another on Saturday
Is there any quick way to recover? I'm the wrong side of 50 unfortunately so the days of bounce back recovery are over but is there anything I can do apart from drink more beer?
Does the affected area feel hot to the touch? Only asking because you say it apparently came out of the blue. I know that day you had driven a short distance, had you done any longer drives in the preceding days?
Not hot to the touch. Around a 3hr drive
Cramp?
Is it swollen at all?
The muscle on affected legs feels firmer than the other like it's in spasm
cramp then. but could be DVT. Does not sound at all like a muscle strain to me. remember medical advice on the internet is worth what yo pay for it 🙂
Hopefully cramp, it's felt better as the day went on yesterday and today. Doubt it's DVT, no throbbing, swelling or redness
You'll probably find that you also have a tight Achilles, tight hamstrings and tight glutes. This happened to me before (actually more than once). When you spend most of your life sitting, this includes cycling. Then you end up getting tightness all down your rear, from your neck to your Achilles and everything in between. The first you know about it is when something gives. You're lucky it wasn't your Achilles tendon.
I'm no doctor but what worked for me was stretching, walking more, swimming, more gym work and using a foam roller.
Symptoms of DVT (deep vein thrombosis)
Symptoms of DVT (deep vein thrombosis) in the leg are:throbbing pain in 1 leg (rarely both legs), usually in the calf or thigh, when walking or standing up
swelling in 1 leg (rarely both legs)
warm skin around the painful area
red or darkened skin around the painful area – this may be harder to see on brown or black skin
swollen veins that are hard or sore when you touch them
Just checking like
Have you tried pummelling the muscle to see if you can free it
RICE is pretty much a debunked strategy these days. Try to stretch, mobilize and get moving. As above a bit of massage may help too,
Happened to me a few weeks back.
I woke up, thought "my legs feel a bit stiff," stretched out and got a sudden searing pain my left calf. It subsided after, I don't know, a minute or two but was sore for the rest of the day and not fully right for another couple. I can only assume some sort of cramp or spasm, but by god it hurt when it initially did it.
That doesn’t sound like a calf strain to me - if I strain mine running / walking uphill / whatever then it doesn’t tend to affect cycling for whatever reason.
Sounds more like some kind of muscle spasm. If so I’d take paracetamol / ibuprofen to help the muscle stop cramping and get some stretching on the go. I get a muscle spasm in my lower back from time and time and it’s a pain - can have me off the bike and struggling to put shoes on. I know the stretches I need to do to gradually work it out and to maintain it as it’s happened a few times now.
RICE is pretty much a debunked strategy these days.
Really? who says?
It looks like you've sufficiently screened for the really nasty stuff (DVT, compartment syndrome) so the likely remaining differentials are:
If it's a cramp and/or muscle spasm it can be treated by lengthening the muscle, and should improve in a relatively short amount of time (minutes to hours). It will be a sharp pain or ache under load but the pain is likely to linger at rest as well, sometimes harder to localise.
If it's a strain (ie you've torn muscle fibres) then the recovery is measured in weeks or even months, depending on the severity. Muscle fibres, unfortunately, can be torn whilst doing fairly innocuous activity- I once tore a gastroc crossing a road. It will be a very sharp, localised pain under loading, with no or low pain at rest.
It will be a very sharp, localised pain under loading, with no or low pain at rest.
That's pretty much it. Hurts if I use that leg to climb stairs (or push off when walking, down when cycling) but no pain at all at rest.
That’s pretty much it. Hurts if I use that leg to climb stairs (or push off when walking, down when cycling) but no pain at all at rest
Regularly move your knee and ankle when sitting/lying down, and slowly re-introduce load as pain allows. You're essentially finding a balance between loading it as much as possible to encourage healing and maintaining strength and not doing any more damage! If you're worried about how much to load the injury, then a physio will be able to help. If it doesn't improve or gets worse you need to see your GP or similar