Shin Splints??? Something worse?! please help me!

Meganekl

So almost a month ago I noticed some knots on the front of my shins... they started out just tender to the touch, about a week and a half later they got a bruised look to them. One leg has a large one(kinda the size of a golf ball cut in half), the other leg has a smaller one(about a large grape cut in half) and it is slightly lower than the other leg. Generally in the same are on both legs though. They would get bigger and smaller , bigger then smaller again but still have the bruise look and would get kinda warm to the touch.They are right on the bone and are somewhat hard. I finally went to the doctor last week and she basically told me "you must have bumped your legs"Because she had no clue what was wrong with them. But went ahead and set me up for an xray that ended up coming back normal with no "boney masses" that she was looking for. Everyone I explain them to says shin splints and they keep telling me all about them but they all say "that's why they hurt so bad" Well they DON'T Hurt that bad.. barely at all. I did 30 day shred a couple weeks before I got the knots and started running on the treadmill the week before I got the knots. My treadmill is stuck on the highest incline so I was wondering maybe I caused some type of injury by running up hill only?! I have no clue!
The knots were actually better when i went to the doctor last Friday, but Starting on Sunday a few new knots are coming up by the old knots. It's really frustrating to not know what's going on. I just didn't know if anyone on here could have possibly experienced the same thing.. Even when my dr called with the results of the xray she mentioned to me again about she really thinks I bumped my legs after I told her that I knew i didn't. (i think i'm going to find a dr!)
She said if they didn't go away within a few weeks she would give me a referral to a rheumatologist.
I started jillian Michaels ripped in 30 on Monday this week... and am concerned I'm going to make them worse if it is an injury from the threadmill...
Any thoughts would be appreciated!

SueInAz

I've never heard of shin splints causing physical bruising before and shin splints HURT. I used to have to get taped every day when I had them during gymnastics season. This sounds like something completely different and completely out of my range of experience which includes 5 years of gymnastics and another 10 of doing competitive karate.