Bones Spurs? Hematoma?

[monoclub 5]

I am based in Taiwan, we have about 1000 players in roller and ice. And very little experience with bone spurs or the like. I have a kid in my club who is 9years old and is crazy about hockey, he often wears his skates 10-12hrs in a day. He has developed what I believe are bone spurs on the back of his heels (both feet!). It looks like a callous only it protrudes about 1cm (about 1/2 inch) and its about 1.5cm x 1cm in size (about 1/2 an inch by 3/4 inch). There is no pain with pressing by hand. Though there is pain after an hour or so of hard skating. He took 6 months off (which was very painful for him in another way!) and tried all kinds of poultices and remedys and it went down about 50% but a short time back and it soon came back in full force. Naturally his parents are concerned about him experiencing pain which has only recently started, but the cosmetics (it looks pretty ugly and as though their kid is deformed) and his inability to wear some shoes is also a concern.

I have looked around on the web and been unable to find information dealing specifically with this. My questions now are:

What is it? - A bone spur, hematoma? Other?

What are the treatments to cure or manage it?

Thanks in advance for any help this board can offer.

Yours,

Geoff Le Cren

[biff44 0]

We have talked about this a number of times over the last 2 years. It is called Haglund's deformity. Try searching the forum.

The first stage is a fluid/fleshy filled bump. If you act quickly on this,the bump will go down. Ice it and lay off the skating for a while.

The 2nd stage is an actual bone spur. That will not go away, and if it gets bad enough needs to be surgically removed.

On one local college hockey team here in the US, over 1/2 of the players have this bump, so it is not necesarily debilitating or uncommon.

It is basically caused by too much rubbing (or too tight a "grip") of the skate to the back of the heel. You need to punch out the skate, get a different brand of skate, wear thicker socks, use a silicon pad for cushoning, etc, and hope it goes away! Bauer sktes USED to be notorious for causing this (the bauer bump), but with the vapor redesign a few years ago, it became less of a problem.

[biff44 0]

Consider this:

http://www.supportsusa.com/ankle/silipos/heel_pads.htm

You would have the kid wear this for a month, icing it down every day after practice, and the bump should be gone after that and he can return to normal skating (albeit maybe with thicker socks).

[mickz 107]

Does this bump move? Could also be a ganglion cyst.

[Karly14 21]

My heel spurs are out of control. I've never experienced pain with them though. I saw Zdeno Chara in sandles once, I've never seen anything like his heels before.

[biff44 0]

I think the key here is if they bother you, you do something about them.

If the bone spur has not developed yet, you do something to try to make the bump go away.

If they do not bother you and you already have the bone spur, you ignore it. If it gets worse sometime later, you have them removed. I guess basically they open you up and take a dremel tool to the bone spur, and then you sit around for a month. Not THAT big of a deal. And if I had it, I would try to find that one orthopaedic specailist that had the microsurgery techniques to do it with the least invasive procedure!

[Nick23 0]

i have just realised from reading this post i have these slightly aswell, must be from my days of almost living on the ice. Causes no pain whatsoever, but im sure an eye needs to be kept on it

[Kovy_Ribs_Fedo 3]

Consider this:

http://www.supportsusa.com/ankle/silipos/heel_pads.htm

You would have the kid wear this for a month, icing it down every day after practice, and the bump should be gone after that and he can return to normal skating (albeit maybe with thicker socks).

Ice helps a lot, I had it when I was younger and ice do the tricks very well.

[Patrick67 1]

I have a ganglion cyst and the inside of my left ankle.

It can best be described as a "half-tennis ball" extruding from the inside of the foot.

Depending on how I tighten my laces, it's from anywhere between slight to very annoying. Got it from when I was playing roller 1½ years ago and got a slashing an that precise spot on my foot (was wearing soft d1c Mission skates)

I can move this bump around quite a bit.

Went to a foot-doctor, and he said if I got it surgically removed it would only reappear as soon as I started playing again.

I'm thinking maybe I should get it removed in the off-season and let my foot heel? or whould this be pointless?

Any advice would be very appreciated.

[biff44 0]

Pat, that must be great fun at parites!

As far as icing, the key there is 10 minutes! In 10 minutes you have done all you can to keep down the inflamation, but you have not cooled it down so much that the blood flow to the area is impared.