Leg pain while walking?

calypsoca

Last week, I started walking again after years of relying on wheels to get me around. I've never walked much at this weight, but when I was ~100 lbs smaller (when I was 19/20), I walked everywhere with no ill effects. Now...my shins kill me within a quarter mile. I can make it just over 3/4 of a mile most days before I collapse into a heap on a bench (the distance from my front door to my daughter's school), though yesterday I had to stop for a break somewhere between 0.4-0.5 miles because my legs were hurting too much. It's hard to breathe, my heart pounds, but I can deal with the huffing and puffing. It's these walking sticks that are supposed to carry me through life that are giving me issues. How long can I expect this to last? Any ideas? FTR, I'm somewhere between 295-300 lbs, 5'4", and 34 years old.

macyme

you should see a dr. could be claudication or heart related pain.

knytestorme

Is it the outside of your shins?

I was getting intense stabbing pain in my shins when walking, anywhere from 5 minutes after I started to 45 minutes, that were to the point I literally could not take a step without having to wait a few minutes to take the next one. After doing research and seeing a podiatrist it became apparent it was shin-splints from over-pronation of my foot due to incorrect shoes.

If this sounds like what you experience, go in to athlete's foot or another shop that will do a fit assessment that includes looking at your walk and how your feet hit the ground so you can see if your arch is high, low, etc and get shoes and/or inserts to account for the arch.

When I walked in the shoes I was using my foot would hit on the back outside of my heel and roll in about 40 degrees to land flat, this was essentially working my outside shin in the same manner as if I were doing any other muscle exercise and thus was overworking it with too much walking (either in exercise or just day-to-day). Now I have high-arch stability shoes and a medium insert and my foot lands almost flat on the ground with each step and the pain is fading (will take a while due to the damage done previously).

This is a really easy thing to check at a good shoe-shop in a mall, and if they find the shoes you are using match what you need then you can go see a specialist but if they find your shoes are wrong you can get that fixed and see if it helps...potentially a lot cheaper than seeing a specialist if you don't need to

elsiebenton

As I am overweight so I have have leg pain while walking. Initially it won't pain while walking less distance but pain increases as walking for long. Loosing weight is the only option for me to get rid of it. But if an old person having some leg pain related problem then one must have to see a nice chiropractor, may be it will be sciatica or any other problem.

RECowgill

I had problems walking when I was 280lbs, I definitely couldn't run more than 20ft without severe shin pain. I had to lose weight. Lift weights, do low impact cardio if you have to (ride a bike, use elliptical), and get ahold of your diet (assuming that's an issue for you, it was for me). What you eat and how much you eat is really the most important thing.

In my case getting my weight down made all the difference. At 225 I can now do 1 hour walks no problem. Getting better shoes helped a bit, but I wouldn't say that's the main thing. If you're limited in what you can do to get your weight down with exercise, then just do what you can. Anything is better than nothing. And put more focus on diet.

And like someone else said, see a doctor to make sure there aren't more serious issues at work. In my case it wasn't, just too heavy hurting my shins/feet.