Tendonitis & Tendonosis

Tendonitis is an injury to a tendon that results in inflammation. However, before we delve into this condition, it’s important to understand that there are really two ‘types’ of tendonitis. One is a short-lived, or acute problem, while the other is ongoing, or chronic.

Tendonitis (sometimes spelled ‘tendinitis’; which means the same thing) is an acute injury to a tendon that’s marked by inflammation.  A tendon will get overused or stressed from an activity and is suddenly inflamed - it’s painful, and may feel hot or swollen.

Tendonosis is a different condition - it’s a description of the condition that occurs when an inflamed tendon (tendonitis) has gone on for too long. The tendon is now more degenerated than inflamed. Too much inflammation leads to the breakdown of the tendon in this condition.

Tendonosis can feel much like tendonitis - both are painful conditions. However, their approaches to treatment are very different. Here’s a video covering why there are different approaches to treatment. 

What Causes It?

Most often, tendonitis is caused by overuse; typically this means performing repetitive motions over and over, like throwing a ball, running, swinging a golf club or tennis racket, etc. The activity doesn’t necessarily matter - it just happens when a tendon is overused.

Tendons attach muscles to bone. They are incredibly strong, flexible tissues and designed to tolerate an enormous amount of force. But like all things, too much use and not enough chance to rest leads to injury.

Lastly, tendons just don’t have a great blood supply to them. This puts them at a disadvantage for healing, because blood delivers nutrients and cells needed to heal damage (and blood removes the waste products too). Tendon injuries are notoriously time consuming to heal!

Certain health conditions (diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis) and medications can put one at risk of tendon issues. One notorious group of antibiotics known as fluorquinolones can lead to bad tendon damage and even rupture. Avoid these drugs at all costs!

Symptoms

Tendonitis is easy to spot. The tendon is tender to touch and may feel warm, slightly swollen and even slightly thicker. You can have these sensations anywhere along the tendon. Sometimes these can occur right where the tendon inserts into the muscle or bone.

In cases of tendonosis, the tendon is almost always thickened and painful just about all the time.

Careful! Many times inflamed tendons will be stiff in the morning, but feel better once you start moving or exercising. Continuing to exercise an inflamed tendon will only make it worse.

Relief

Follow these steps as soon as you feel pain in a tendon; doing so will help speed healing from tendonitis and prevent it from becoming a chronic problem (tendonosis).

1. Rest. Stop doing whatever it was that led to the tendonitis. It’s tough to heal a body part that’s never given a break. The more you continue to use it, the longer it will take to heal. Stopping now will allow it to recover a lot more quickly than trying to work around the injury.
2. You can keep doing some exercise, but switch it up from doing whatever motion caused the tendonitis. Maybe lift some weights for a few weeks, ride a bike, try yoga, swimming - anything that doesn’t stress the injured tendon.
3. Avoid over the counter drugs like ibuprofen or other NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs)!  Despite these drugs being heavily touted, they have a bad side effect of inhibiting repair of tendons. Yep, they take away the pain but slow the healing.
4. Here are some natural medicines that we recommend:

Inflammation Relief contains systemic enzymes that help speed healing by breaking down pain-generating and inflammation-producing chemicals in the injured tissue. It also improves oxygen and nutrient delivery to the injured tendon.

Curcumin Relief is a powerful, natural anti-inflammatory compound derived from the herb Turmeric. Curcumin Relief is made of a highly absorbable form of curcumin - it’s one of the strongest natural anti-inflammatories known!

Ligament Restore contains the amino acids, collagen, and vitamins that serve as the building blocks for repair of tendons and ligaments. It also contains pain-relieving botanical medicines.

Follow all of the above recommendations as soon as you start to feel pain/burning in any tendon. Most cases of tendonitis, when caught early will heal up in 10-14 days…if the plan is followed in detail! Otherwise, tendonitis may develop into tendonosis which requires a lot more attention and time to recover from.