Britain's Chief Medical Officer has issued a dire warning as to the state of the nation's bone health today. Professor Dame Sally Davies has said that stress fractures amongst long distance runners are costing the NHS "millions of pounds". "Until recently, a stress fracture was a serious condition confined to a limited number of patients" said the Professor "today it seems that in order to be taken seriously as an athlete you have to of suffered such an injury".
Dame Sally added that whilst the findings of this recent report were "very worrying", the recovery rate - particularly amongst female athletes - was becoming remarkably fast. "Just a couple of years ago, a stress fracture would leave an athlete unable to walk for between two and four weeks, with it taking many months for a full recovery" said the sickle cell specialist "now it seems that the symptoms can mysteriously vanish ahead of an evening out with friends. It really is remarkable."
Professor Davies reported that recovery times "from diagnosis to resumption of full training" can be as little as a week. "However," she continued "such is the severity of the injury nowadays, the athlete feels the need to talk about the injury for some time after it has completely healed. They tend to drop it into casual conversations that have absolutely nothing to do with running whatsoever. For example, if one were to be talking about a broken mobile telephone, the formerly 'injured' athlete would add: 'broken - a little like my bone was when I had that stress fracture.' It becomes so very tiresome for the friends of the said athlete and as such the inevitably find themselves isolated."
The CMO said that she felt the NHS needed to "get a grip of the epidemic" and "deal with all facets of the condition". "If that means providing psychological help to injured athletes then so be it," she added.