Compartment Syndrome Health Video

Painful condition for runners and athletes who do a great deal of running. Cause of compartment syndrome is leg muscles outgrowing their enclosures. Learn more about this condition in this medical treatment video.

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Symptoms include leg pain, numbness & tingling
Pressure on leg muscles increases
Stop exercise to relieve symptoms
Surgery may be required

About this Author

Medical Director Thomas Clanton, M.D., is also professor in the department of orthopedic surgery at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston. Board certified since 1984, Dr. Clanton is a former president of the Texas Society for Sports Medicine. Associate editor of Foot and Ankle International, he is widely published and lectures throughout the United States, Mexico, Japan and Europe.Dr. Clanton currently serves on the Board of Councilors of the International Federation of Foot and Ankle Surgeons. Dr, Clanton has been a team physician for the Rice University Athletic Department since 1982, as well as being a team orthopedist for the Houston Texans since 2001 and head team physician for the Houston Rockets since 2005.

DR. THOMAS CLANTON: Exertional compartment syndrome is a condition that can occur in running athletes. It typically is a condition that produces leg pain, sometimes numbness or tingling, and occasionally even a drop foot when the pressures within the muscle compartment build up to a high level and result in the nerves not working properly. If we look at this model of a leg in cross-section, you see the bones here, the tibia and the fibula, and then you have the muscles surrounding the bone. There are four compartments in the leg, four muscle compartments. There is an anterior compartment, a lateral compartment, a superficial posterior compartment and a deep compartment. And when pressures build up to an excessive degree then that can cut off the exchange of oxygenated blood into the muscles and then the blood picking up the lactic acid and other waste products out of the muscles. So you build up waste products in the muscles that causes pain. The pressure is increase within the muscle, that can produce pain and it requires stopping the exercise in order for this to relieve those symptoms. The treatment is generally alteration in the exercise program, sometimes reducing mileage in running, occasionally using different types of orthoses or strapping of the leg can be helpful. But oftentimes, this particular condition requires surgical treatment if the athlete is expecting to continue exercising at the same level. The surgery involved is to release the covering over the muscle in the compartment. That's called a fasciotomy, and that reduces the pressure and thereby treats the compartment syndrome problem.