Ouch!   WTF causes those damn things and what's the best treatment?

 Never had one in my life until last night at work.  Felt like someone stuck an ice pick in my shin with every step.

 I gimped around for a few hours and it eased up.

Also known as "Anterior Compartment Syndrome".........you strained the small muscles........rub them out, yes it will hurt, drink lots of water.....tough it out.

There is no miracle cure.
Sorry

Quoted: Also known as "Anterior Compartment Syndrome".........you strained the small muscles........rub them out, yes it will hurt, drink lots of water.....tough it out. There is no miracle cure. Sorry

+1

They suck, but are temporary.

Stretch you calf muscles. Do an excercise where you stand and put weight on your heal and lift your toe to strengthen the musle in the front of your shin. Get new running shoes. Works for me.

Quoted: Stretch you calf muscles. Do an excercise where you stand and put weight on your heal and lift your toe to strengthen the musle in the front of your shin. Get new running shoes. Works for me.

The only cure for shin splints is time.
All those telling you to tough it out are full of it.
If you start running again without giving them time to heal they are simply going to get worse. Trust me I know.

Stretching before and after running is always good. The above mentioned is the easiest way to do it. I use a tall curb to help out.  Also new shoes are a good idea. People have different types of feet and require support in different places. A GOOD shoe store should have someone there who can help you pick what's right for you.

 I wasn't running, I was at work.  I had been climbing around inside a large transfer press working on some tooling earlier, but don't remember doing anything that would cause that sort of thing.

Strange.

I recently started a twice-a-day exercise program and was having shin splints really bad.  But only sometimes.

I finally figured out that it was a specific pair of shoes that were doing it to me.  I switched to another pair and the problem went away.

The particular shoes had a stiff sole and my foot couldn't bend.  Since I quit using them, no more problems.

Try a different pair of shoes.

This won't help them go away but in college our team had to do "duck drills" that would help prevent them.  Start with your toes pointed out then lift the front of your foot so you are on you heels and walk for ~50ft.  Then point your toes in and walk again on your heels.  Then switch to walking on your toes with your heels out then on toes with toes out.  Don't do this where others can see you because you look like a real jackass but this does work.  We had very few cases of shin splints on the team after we started these.