It was during Cassidy’s high school freshman-year track season that she started experiencing intense shin pain at practices and meets. Pain was unusual for the Elysburg, Pa., athlete, who had been playing sports since she was 5.
“My legs felt like they were going to explode,” says Cassidy, now 21. “It was shooting pain that would last for days.”
Her school’s athletic trainer figured it was a severe case of shin splints and referred her to a physical therapist. There, she spent multiple days a week receiving scraping, cupping, and stretching therapies.
“I was trying everything I could — icing and ice baths, pain medicine, wearing contraptions on my feet for a few hours a night, using crutches and a boot — but nothing was making the pain go away.”
Cassidy started missing track practices and had trouble walking for days after meets. When her sophomore fall soccer season began, she endured intense pain every day while still getting treated for an erroneous shin splint diagnosis. The pain forced her to miss school dances and snowboarding season.
By spring of her sophomore year in 2021, COVID had shut down sports and Cassidy’s shins finally got some relief — until her junior-year soccer season began the following fall.
“At this point, it was getting so bad that my mom and I agreed we needed to try something else,” Cassidy said.
North Central Pa Ortho
An Hour’s Travel for Answers
A friend’s dad mentioned foot and ankle surgeon Zachary Ritter, DPM, at UPMC Williamsport. That winter, Cassidy traveled over an hour to find that shin splints were not her problem.
“At the very first meeting, Dr. Ritter thought it could be exercise-induced compartment syndrome, which was the first time I’d ever heard of the condition,” she said. Her case wasn’t a textbook version of compartment syndrome. But a painful test that included long needles to measure the leg muscles confirmed this diagnosis — and its severity.
Doctors describe compartment syndrome as increased pressure inside the leg muscles, reducing blood flow and causing pain. Symptoms can include:
- Burning or aching pain in the lower leg muscles.
- Leg muscles bulging or swelling.
- Weakness or numbness in the legs.
For people whose story is similar to Cassidy’s, a fasciotomy is necessary. Fascia is the tough connective tissue that wraps around your muscles. In fasciotomy surgery, doctors make cuts in the fascia to relieve pressure in the muscles.
Compartment syndrome is very rare. It occurs in fewer than 10 of every 100,000 people in the United States.
With proper treatment and care, a full recovery and pain-free life is possible.
A Life-Changing Day
Before long, Cassidy had scheduled her fasciotomies.
“I was scared because the only option for me was surgery on both legs, but I was more relieved to finally have some answers and a path to health,” Cassidy said. “That day changed my life forever.”
In January 2021, within a few weeks of each other, Dr. Ritter performed two minimally invasive surgeries to cut the fascia in Cassidy’s four leg muscles. This left two small scars on either side of her legs.
She went home the same day after both surgeries. By March, thanks to recovery time and physical therapy, she was running pain-free.
“It was insane that I got to do the surgeries between sports seasons and that I was able to meet Dr. Ritter, be diagnosed, have both surgeries, recover, and be running all in the span of five months,” she marvels.
And run she did, setting a personal record in the 400-meter event during her junior track season. That feat got her an invite to join the Slippery Rock University track team for college.
But running a stellar track season wasn’t her only post-surgery accomplishment: “My senior year continued the comeback story of a lifetime,” she says.
A Three-Sport Comeback Story
Cassidy practiced and competed in every one of her senior-year soccer games, going all the way to states and winning the championship with her team.
Only a few months later, she found herself back on the state stage with her basketball team for the first time in her school’s history, placing second.
Another track season rounded out her three-sport senior year, and Cassidy finished high school with a commitment to the Slippery Rock track team.
And though she doesn’t run track at Slippery Rock anymore, she will always treasure her time playing sports in high school and practicing with a D2 sports team, thanks to her care at UPMC.
“I will forever be thankful for Dr. Ritter and will tell my kids these stories one day,” she says. “The entire team at UPMC dug into the deepest depths to figure out my diagnosis, and Dr. Ritter always made me feel seen and heard. He changed my life and gave me back sports!”
Cassidy remembers with some difficulty the time when the pain from compartment syndrome took up so much of her life.
“It’s difficult to remember those times because they were so hard and painful, but they made me stronger and I wouldn’t be me without them,” she says. “Plus, those experiences led me to Slippery Rock, where I have a great apartment, great friends, and love my major.”
And though it’s a different experience than D2 sports or winning the championship game, Cassidy still loves running around the soccer field with her intramural team at school.
“I was given my life back, and I can thank Dr. Ritter for that!”