Stress Fractures

“People tend to look at dancers like we are these little jewels, little cardboard cut-outs, and yet we have blood and guts and go through Hell.”

-Susan Jaffe

Dancers encounter many different types of injuries within the body, just like any other athlete. Bones especially are placed under a great deal of stress on a dancer that can result in stress fractures. Stress fractures are small splits in the bone, they can appear in the feet and legs of any athlete when a lot of strain has been placed on the bones from high intensity workouts with little time to recover. The bone cells will replace themselves, however if the bone tissue is worn down to quickly without a healing period, the bones will split faster than they can be replaced, leaving small gaps in the bone itself.

Dancers with stress fracture injuries will most likely notice pain, swelling and sensitivity within a specific spot, typically in their legs or feet. Ignoring that pain is usually the result of further injury, because with more constant use on that given spot without rest the more serious and damaging the injury becomes. Stress fractures can be seen in X-ray scans, but sometimes it takes an MRI to really see the damage done.

A stress fracture injury can occur soddenly and overtime. It may result from a combination of not enough rest and overuse, a sudden increase in rehearsal time, coming back from a resting period without sufficient conditioning, and also the way in which dancers land specific tricks, jumps and leaps. Not all causes are a result from dancing itself, other key roles in getting a stress fracture in your bone is the dancer’s diet. A blend of abnormal menstrual cycles, eating disorders, and being underweight could be a reason a dancer is prone to stress fractures. Having a small body mass with a full load of dance can cause a lot of stress on a dancer’s bones, resulting in stress fractures.

An at home remedy for helping a stress fracture is to rest, ice, compress and elevate. Frequent icing, massaging and taking a suggestive amount of ibuprofen between several hours of intervals should show some improvement. With swelling, wrapping of the bone in addition to elevation would also be quite helpful to the dancer. Most importantly rest is very important in the process of stress fracture recovery.

If a stress fracture becomes relevant in a dancers life mid-season without a long period that could be used for resting they could try out a bone stimulator. It is able to send ultra sound wave pulses into the bone marrow, producing young bone cells and cartilage cells. They can be used at home and only take around thirty minutes a use. These bone stimulators help cut the time of recovery to work within a dancer’s busy schedule. Of course they should still use the at home remedies to speed up the process as well, in addition to consulting a doctor on what is the best solution  for individual dancer.

Although it is hard for a dancer to take time off and rest injuries between rehearsals, commitments, performances and conditioning it is extremely necessary and important to do so. To continue putting tension on the stress fracture, could lead to the longest resting period of all, retirement that is, from the art the dancer has perfected for so long. Dance could become a thing of the past if not treated immediately, so with that listen to your body and think about the costs in the long scheme of events.

~Julia Brewer

Disclaimer: These are all ideas by Nancy Wozny article on Boning Up in Dance Magazine’s October 2011 issue.