Lizzie Miller loves nothing more than pounding the pavements away from her job as a matron at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham’s (QEHB) busy Clinical Decision Unit and Emergency Department.

Running helps the experienced nurse shake off a busy day at the office and she regularly completes five kilometres twice during the week with a further ten kilometres at the weekends.

So when pain in her left lower leg became so bad that she couldn’t indulge in her passion, she called in her colleagues at the QEHB's Sport and Exercise Medicine Service (SEMS) for their expert help.

“Last summer I had been having a few niggles while running and had seen the SEMS physio a couple of times. Then I went on holiday to France and I ran every day while I was there but the discomfort was becoming quite severe.

“When I came back it was the SEMS physio, Mark Liptrot, who suggested it might be something more serious.

“He got me in to see the consultant, Kim Gregory, who organised an MRI scan which revealed a stress fracture of the tibia.

“I was shocked, I thought it was just shin splints and had tried to ignore it. We don’t know how long I had been running with the fracture.”

After two weeks in an aircast boot and then a further four weeks rest for the bone to heal, the SEMS team set about getting Lizzie fit to resume running.

During this time Lizzie had physiotherapy and a podiatry review to help optimise her movement patterns and use the time she was not running to bring benefit to her future running, with the aim of reducing her risk of further injury in the longer term.

“Kim was really mindful that running was my way of relieving the stress of work and her whole team were absolutely brilliant,” said Lizzie.

“They worked out a complete return to running programme for me and really went the extra mile to ensure that I was comfortable, explaining what exercise I could do and making sure that I worked my way back up to my full distances in the proper way.

“There was a really joined-up approach to my treatment. It’s a really cohesive service with a strong team approach to each patient.”

The team even arranged for Lizzie to use the high-tech Alter G anti-gravity treadmill at the University of Birmingham during her rehab, so she could train without putting stress on her limbs.

“It’s a fantastic piece of kit that means you can keep your cardio-vascular fitness up ready for when you return to proper running,” she said.

“I am a lot better prepared for my running now and the chances of injuring myself again are greatly reduced.”

Dr Gregory said: “Lizzie’s case is a perfect example of how the department can help amateur sportspeople, the weekend warriors, maintain participation in their chosen sport or physical activity for fun and general fitness.

“Although as a team we have helped many elite competitors, our main focus is to translate our expertise to the wider population and support them participating in physical activity that they enjoy. Physical inactivity is now widely recognised as a major health threat in the UK.”

Lizzie is now back up to her full distances each week and is hoping to participate in the Women’s Running magazine 10k race in Finsbury Park, London, at the start of June 2015, which will be raising money for the Alzheimer’s Society’s dementia research.

For more information about their work please contact the SEMS team.

Tel: 0121 371 3493
Email: Sems@nhs.net