Hello, thank you for your enquiry.

Your question is about your mother having signs and symptoms of musculoskeletal system, such as pain over the upper part of the shin with inflammation and the pain appears when she straighten her leg. You also claims to felt some swelling over the inflammatory site.

For your information there are a few reasons for such pain over the upper part of the shin. Tendonitis is one of the cause for such pain as the tendon of the muscle inflamed, it will disturb the normal movement of the muscle and causes pain. Hence, any movement of the muscle will leads to pain over the affected site such as straighten of leg in your mother’s case. Meanwhile, inflammation will have different degree of swelling depends on the severity, which may be felt over the affected site as well.

The differential diagnosis for such pain are:

• shin splints

• osteoarthritis

• infection

• stress fracture

• chronic exertional compartment syndrome (uncommon)

Therefore, to find out the final diagnosis for the pain, a more detailed history is required as some of the common symptoms may overlapped within these diseases. A doctor examinations and investigations such as xray and MRI are essential as well.

We highly recommend you to present to hospital with your mother for further examinations and investigations, then a proper treatment plan will be given for a better outcome.
You also can contact us for an online consultation for assistance.

Thank you, we hope our answer has been helpful.

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