Question: I am trying to understand the healing and pain process of my tibia stress fracture and whether I should be concerned about bone mets. I take Arimidex (no chemo Onco Dx 8) and had a stress fracture of my the medial left tibia. It was confirmed in April via MRI, took about 3 months to feel better, which it did for one month then the pain returned after wearing heals and dancing. I saw a new Orthopedist today for a second opinion and he took a x-ray. He said he feels it is a new stress fracture or more likely knee bursitis, perhaps both. He also reviewed the previous MRI. He said the x-ray did not show a new stress fracture but he showed me (but didn't make a big deal over) a few (2) brighter areas of white patchy density in the area of the stress fracture. He did not explain what they were but acted like it was normal. He wants a MRI and said if it's not a stress fracture he'll give me a cortisone shot for the bursitis. My concern is the white small patches of brighter density in the area of the stress injury. Is this normal? I looked it up and it said it come sometimes resemble bone mets. I have never had any stress injuries before so this whole healing and pain process has me worried. I always have questions that come to me AFTER I leave my appointments. Other than this leg pain returning I feel great! Thank you in advance for your time and advice.

Thank you for your response. Let me be more specific, would the healing response process to the original stress fractures from a few months ago show as a white area of brighter density?