SMART Tools - ITBand Treatment (Short Version) - Dr. Mark Kemenosh and Associates

So a lot of our patients have issues with pain, tenderness and tightness in and around the Iliotibial Band, often times referred to as the ITBand. While in most cases there are various reasons why our patients present with pain in this particular tissue, treating it has been done various ways in the past, some with great success and some with no success. Here at the office we do our best to treat each patient individually using a mixture of treatment methods best on several things like the presentation of the patients issue, where it is located on the ITBand (near the hip, in the middle of the femur, or at the lateral border of the knee) and the mechanism of injury or in some cases the mechanism of aggravation (take that runners, cyclists, and crossfitters, I have a new way of explaining to you guys and gals who like to say to me “but I never actually hurt it”).

In all conditions, the first thing most patients do is GOOGLE IT to see what comes up. In most cases of googling things that sound like ITBand Syndrome, here is an excerpt of the results.

Iliotibial band syndrome occurs when the connective tissue (ligament) extending from the pelvic bone to the shinbone becomes so tight that it rubs against the thighbone. Distance runners and cyclists are especially susceptible to it.

The main symptom is pain between the hip and knees that worsens with activity.

Treatments such as physical therapy and sometimes corticosteroid injections may help. In rare cases, surgery may be needed.

In my opinion, the only thing Google got right in the treatment section is that physcial therapy almost always helps because a good physical therapist will help you strength the posterior gluteal regions, lateral hips, hip rotators and the pressure on the ITBand will decrease in almost all cases. Every so often we find an ITBand that needs a corticosteroid injection but those are fairly rare as well. We are not the biggest fans of ITBand release surgical procedures unless something other than running 5k’s is the causation to the problem, but again, every tool has it’s purpose and when properly used/applied it makes sense. So getting past all of that, lets take a look at what we are working with here.

If you are familiar with our office, then you are familiar with the fact that we treat the Tensor Fasica Lata muscle on almost every runner and cyclist who comes to our office. We also commonly treat gluteus medius, and sometimes gluteus maximus as well because the Iliotibialband itself is a fairly dense/tough piece of tissue that runs from the lateral border of the ilium down to the lateral border just below the knee and attaches to tibia, hence it’s name, the ITBand (Iliotibialband).

What a lot of patients don’t realize that now we are using SMART Tools as well for some “harder to deal with” cases of ITBand syndrome and this video from Smart Tools shows one very effective technique for mobilize the borders of the ITBand with motion. As seen in the video below, this is just another way that we are ever expanding our use of manual medicine here at the office and not just relying on Chiropractic Manipulation, Active Release Technique, RockTape, Corrective Exercises, or SMART Tools IASTM (Instrument Assisted Soft Tissue Manipulation) to keep you, our patient, going and doing what you love!

Please note that if you ever need help from us about something giving you issues, please shoot us an email and will do our absolute best to get back to you in 24 hours or less!

Need to see more pics of the Tensor Fascia Lata, Iliotibial Band, and Gluteus Medius you can trust, here is a cartoon version in a runner that is somewhat accurate.

Lastly, here are a few shots from our meeting at the Haddonfield Running Co a few weeks back where we talked running, problems like ITBand Pain, ITBand Tenderness, ITBand Tightness, and ITBand Syndrome. In these pictures I the Active Release Techniques movements for treating the Tensor Fascia Lata and ITB!