The North Star Project, 2013-2014 Report Number Forty-Five, My Globalized Medicine Experience, by Nick Power

Most people don’t know what Chronic Exertional Compartment Syndrome (CECS) is, and frankly, you probably don’t want to know. It is very painful and difficult to treat properly. To sum it up, the muscles in your calf are surrounded by something called fascia, which is basically like the skin surrounding the meat of a chicken. When you exercise, your muscles expand with blood that goes in and out, but with CECS your fascia is really scarred and tight. Blood flow is restricted and the pressure increases immensely. I have had this before and I had surgery in Duluth but my condition was not resolved. In order to test for CECS, you must exercise and then after you start to get symptoms a needle is inserted in your muscles in order to read pressures. I was tested again and my pressures were not high enough to diagnose compartment syndrome. Instead these…