How Physical Therapy Can Alleviate Your Tendon Problems
Have you been struggling to get over a bad case of tendonitis? Are you frustrated with how long it takes to recover from a tendon injury? At PhysioWorks in Kent, our physical therapists can help identify the type of tendon problem you have and, more importantly, how to resolve it once and for all!
A tendon is a type of connective tissue that attaches a muscle to a bone. A tendon helps to move our bodies by transmitting forces from muscle to bone. Tendons also function to resist forces, specifically high speed, and high tensile forces.
An injured tendon can impact our ability to perform the most basic activities to the most advanced ones. Fortunately, our team of physical therapists can help identify the type of tendon problem you are experiencing and give you the tools to get back to doing what you’ve been avoiding.
Request an appointment today, and let us help guide you back to health!
What are the different types of tendon injuries?
Tendonopathy describes any problem with a tendon, including disease, injury, or disorder. There are a lot of possible causes for your painful tendon. Collagen is the main structural protein in tendons, and collagen breakdown is often the underlying reason for a tendon disorder.
The role of a tendon is to transfer energy from a muscle to a bone and to absorb/resist tension caused by prolonged positions and/or forceful/fast movements of the body. These high levels of stress can lead to collagen breakdown and injury.
The most common types of injuries to a tendon include:
- Tendonitis: Tendinitis is defined as an inflammation of the tendon. Acute injuries, including small or partial tearing, can produce an inflammatory response. These types of injuries heal quickly as they move through inflammation to tissue repair. One way to identify this condition is how quickly it heals.
- Tendonosis: Tendinosis describes a dysfunctional tendon and typically does not specify the pathological process. It is typically used to describe overuse-type conditions. These disorders involve a collagen breakdown. Recent research has concluded that most overuse tendon pathologies do not have inflammatory cells.
It is important to note that overuse tendon disorders often take a long time to heal because rebuilding collagen is a slow process. Treating degenerative collagen with anti-inflammatory medication, such as corticosteroid injections or oral medications, can impair the healing process!
- Tenosynovitis: This condition is often thought to be an overuse problem and is likely due to inflammation and/or irritation between a tendon and its surrounding synovial sheath (i.e., a thin layer of tissue surrounding a tendon).
- Tendon tears and ruptures: A tendon tear/rupture is a partial or complete tear of your tendon. Most tears to tendons are the result of an injury caused during sports or a fall.
In addition, ruptures can be acute and chronic.
- Acute tendon rupture: This type of injury is a one-time event. It leads to immediate pain and reduced function. Bruising and swelling are likely.
- Chronic tendon rupture: This type of injury is often the result of a partial rupture that worsens over time. An untreated acute rupture usually causes it.
Lumping all tendon injuries into the same category and the same treatment plan is likely the reason for the lack of improvement some people experience. Fortunately, our team of therapists can not only distinguish between the different types of problems, but we can also guide you through an individualized program to achieve the best possible outcome!
How physical therapy can help your tendons
At PhysioWorks in Kent, we will conduct a thorough evaluation that includes learning about how long you have been dealing with your injury. This will help us identify the type of condition you are dealing with. Once we know this information, we will design a program tailored to your needs.
The goal of tendon rehabilitation is to gradually progress the exercises to challenge the tendon without irritating it further. We will likely recommend an active rehabilitation program that progressively loads the tendon. Loading means the cumulative amount of exercise you’re doing and can be changed by adding repetitions, sets, resistance, duration, and speed.
Tendons will alert you to overtraining by getting worse and worse while you are exercising or having more pain 24 hours after exercising. Pain that worsens during exercise is a clear sign that the tendon is not ready for that particular exercise/activity. Typically the pain will improve as the tendon warms up, so if it gets worse, it is essential to stop immediately.
When you notice your pain is worse 24 hours after exercise/activity, it means you were trying to push too far too fast. It is a reliable way to know when it is safe to progress again, and if you try to force things, you will only end up delaying your recovery.
Is rest the best option?
It is far too common for the medical community to recommend rest, ice, and anti-inflammatory medication for all tendon injuries. This strategy is ineffective at best and detrimental at worst.
Resting tendons is not the most effective strategy and may delay your recovery. Tendons are designed to withstand large forces, and resting them can weaken them further and make you more susceptible to re-injury. Our physical therapists can teach you how to safely load your tendon to keep it strong while it heals.
Ice is OK if used for pain relief, but blood flow is crucial for healing, so that that heat may be a better choice for healing assistance. Too often, people use old strategies that don’t help the condition heal faster and may inhibit recovery. Tendons, in particular, don’t like the cold when you are about to use them. Cold tendons are not able to respond to everyday stresses from activity, as well as warm tendons. This is a big reason why people warm up before training and why you feel stiff in the mornings.
Anti-inflammatory medications have been shown to inhibit recovery in some incidences, and, too often, it is recommended for painful tendons as opposed to inflamed tendons. Fortunately, our physical therapists can help identify the type of tendon issue you have and, most notably, the most effective steps you need to take to resolve it!
Request an appointment at PhysioWorks today!
Our team of physical therapists at Kent are experts at treating tendon-related injuries. We have proven success with treating tendon disorders and can help you resolve your problem once and for all!
Call today to schedule an appointment with one of our specialists!