What is tendonitis?
Tendonitis, or tendinitis, is a painful problem affecting in your tendon.
Your tendons are the tough, fibrous bands of tissue connecting your muscles to your bones. When you have tendonitis, your tendon grows irritated or inflamed and thickens near the affected joint, causing pain.
The symptoms of tendonitis appear where your tendon attaches to the bone or along the tendon. The signs of tendonitis include:
- Redness, swelling, or heat
- Creaking or grinding during movement
- Pain that increases with activity
When you have tendonitis, your symptoms can last a few days or weeks and months.
What causes tendonitis?
In most cases, tendonitis is due to overuse or repetitive motion, but you can also develop tendonitis because of an injury. This condition can affect tendons anywhere in your body, but it usually appears in your knees, heels, elbows, wrists, and shoulders.
Common tendonitis conditions include:
- Tennis or golfer’s elbow
- Swimmer’s or pitcher’s shoulder
- Jumper’s knee
- Achilles tendonitis
- Rotator cuff tendonitis
- Patellar tendonitis
- Plantar fasciitis
Several factors can increase your likelihood of having tendonitis, especially participating in certain sports, having a job with repetitive or awkward movements, and growing older.
How is tendonitis diagnosed and treated?
To reach a tendonitis diagnosis, the team performs a comprehensive physical exam, discusses your symptoms, and reviews your personal and medical history. They always look for reversible causes so they can treat them immediately and avoid long-term damage.
Depending on the cause of your tendonitis in your symptoms, the team might recommend a variety of therapies, including:
- Platelet-rich plasma therapy: uses vital growth factors found in your blood to accelerate the healing process
- Prolotherapy: method where they inject a natural irritant into your tendon to trigger the healing process
- Tendon fenestration: process where they use an ultrasound-guided needle, similar to acupuncture, to prompt your tendon to heal
- Percutaneous tenotomy, like TenJet® and Tenex Health®: procedures in which they remove diseased tendon while preserving healthy tissue
Each of these procedures focuses on eliminating dead cells are scar tissue in the area to encourage proper healing and recovery.
For more information on tendonitis diagnosis and treatments, call Restorative Physical Medicine or schedule an appointment online today.
