My Intra-Compartmental Pressure Test

For my Intra-Compartmental Pressure Test, I was to run on a treadmill to bring on an attack, hurry back to the examination room where the doctor was waiting with the device used to measure my post exercise compartmental pressures. My doctor was nice enough to forgo the pre-exercise pressure readings, which saved me a few needle sticks.

I was nervous about this appointment for a few reasons. One reason of course was the pain associated with bringing on a CECS attack and then having a large needle stuck into each compartment of my calves. But even more so than the pain, I was nervous that running on a treadmill to bring on a CECS attack would not present itself in the same manner that inline skating and snow skiing does. Runners are the largest group of athletes that suffer from CECS, but I am not, nor have I ever been a runner. I knew I would have an attack, I just wasn't sure that all four compartments would measure appropriate pressures.

It took about 7 minutes on the treadmill to bring on an attack painful enough that I could not continue. Somehow I made it back to the examination room where the doctor was waiting with needle in hand. I was already in a significant amount of pain because of the CECS attack, but the needle measurements certainly added a great deal of insult to injury.

The doctor had to perform my anterior compartment pressure measurement twice because he could not believe the reading. Anything above 30 mm Hg is considered abnormally high. The pressure in my anterior compartment was 120 mm Hg. My lateral compartment pressure measured 50 mm Hg. Though neither my superficial posterior nor my deep posterior showed abnormally high pressure measurements. This was exactly what I was concerned about. From experience, I know that the pain from a CECS attack surrounds my entire calf and not just in my anterior and lateral compartments.

I expressed my concerns to the doctor and he explained that the deep posterior compartment release involves a longer recovery period and has a lower success rate. And that he hoped that by releasing only the anterior and lateral compartments, enough room would be created to keep the pressure from building in the deep posterior. He also added that the superficial posterior compartment was borderline and that it was up to me if I wanted to have him release this one as well. While I was hesitant to have only three compartments released instead of all four, I could see his point, but that I definitely wanted three releases instead of just two. My biggest fear is that I will go though this ordeal and that we will find out that we have to do it again.

So the next step was scheduling the surgery.