I have just been diagnosed with a stress reaction of the femoral neck. This is the precursor to a fracture, so it was an early spot. Inflammation shows up on the MRI but no fractures on the CT scan. Treatment is basically the same.
I started with a low level nagging pain in my groin. Quite deep - certainly too deep to manipulate. No stretch seemed to hit it. Everyday pain in the groin got worse and worse the more I continued running. During running itself, the first 1.5km was the worst - footfalls were really painful and I would have to start very gently and ease myself into the run carefully. After 1.5k or so it would bed down, but if I had to stop and restart, it was very painful again for a few hundred metres.
Then immediately after running I would notice a sharp pain in transition movements - eg getting up from a chair - when I came to weight bear on the bad leg. Now the pain was a shooting pain focussed in the groin but referring down the leg.
After one particular fast run it became very acute, so much so that I was having real trouble walking. I found a stretch that pinged it: lie on the floor face down and do a straight leg lift of the afflicted leg. The next morning I could not walk - literally - I needed to keep all weight off my right leg.
After 36 hour I was walking very gingerly. The acuteness would not walk off though, as a muscle or tendon pull might.
Two weeks after that I was scanned and diagnosed. During that period I noticed that I was having real problems transferring my weight smoothly onto the afflicted leg at the footfall stage of an ordinary walking stride. Transition states remained very difficult and painful. Two weeks after that (ie now) I am moving freely, can weight bear on my leg at walking speeds without inhibition, and transition states are fine. However, I can feel a very low level ache that tells me that it's not yet sorted, and that it would be unwise to try a higher impact load (running) just yet.
HTH
ETA: mine is affecting the compression (lower) side of the femoral neck, so I was able to dodge crutches (though I admit there was a time when I would have been pretty keen on having some). Even at the most acute phase of the injury, I had zero pain when non weight bearing - bed or sitting. During my 36 hours of enforced bed rest I kept lying there thinking "I feel fine. What's the problem?". Then I'd have to get up to go to the bathroom, which would take 10 minutes of sharp pain, careful balancing, deep breathing and general unpleasantness, and remember what the problem was.
I started with a low level nagging pain in my groin. Quite deep - certainly too deep to manipulate. No stretch seemed to hit it. Everyday pain in the groin got worse and worse the more I continued running. During running itself, the first 1.5km was the worst - footfalls were really painful and I would have to start very gently and ease myself into the run carefully. After 1.5k or so it would bed down, but if I had to stop and restart, it was very painful again for a few hundred metres.
Then immediately after running I would notice a sharp pain in transition movements - eg getting up from a chair - when I came to weight bear on the bad leg. Now the pain was a shooting pain focussed in the groin but referring down the leg.
After one particular fast run it became very acute, so much so that I was having real trouble walking. I found a stretch that pinged it: lie on the floor face down and do a straight leg lift of the afflicted leg. The next morning I could not walk - literally - I needed to keep all weight off my right leg.
After 36 hour I was walking very gingerly. The acuteness would not walk off though, as a muscle or tendon pull might.
Two weeks after that I was scanned and diagnosed. During that period I noticed that I was having real problems transferring my weight smoothly onto the afflicted leg at the footfall stage of an ordinary walking stride. Transition states remained very difficult and painful. Two weeks after that (ie now) I am moving freely, can weight bear on my leg at walking speeds without inhibition, and transition states are fine. However, I can feel a very low level ache that tells me that it's not yet sorted, and that it would be unwise to try a higher impact load (running) just yet.
HTH
ETA: mine is affecting the compression (lower) side of the femoral neck, so I was able to dodge crutches (though I admit there was a time when I would have been pretty keen on having some). Even at the most acute phase of the injury, I had zero pain when non weight bearing - bed or sitting. During my 36 hours of enforced bed rest I kept lying there thinking "I feel fine. What's the problem?". Then I'd have to get up to go to the bathroom, which would take 10 minutes of sharp pain, careful balancing, deep breathing and general unpleasantness, and remember what the problem was.