What Is Tendinopathy?
Tendons are strong rope like structures that connects a bone to a muscle. When muscles shorten, the tendon pulls on the bone to allow movement. When they get injured, it causes a breakdown in collagen and results in a tendinopathy.
Formally known as tendinitis, tendinopathy can limit function to that particular tendon and muscle, can cause pain and decrease flexibility to the affected area. Tendon’s do not have the best blood supply which means rehab and healing is a slow process.
What Causes A Tendinopathy
There are 3 main causes of tendinopathies
- Overuse injury
- Sudden increase of load to a specific muscle
- Aging and lack of muscle tone
While tendinopathy can affect any tendon, common areas include:
- Achilles Tendon
- Rotator Cuff
- Patella Tendon
- Gluteal Tendon
- Lateral Epicondyle tendons (known as tennis elbow)
Healing Process Of Tendons
- Tendons are stubborn and they take a long time to heal
- They don’t like change, but they need slow improvement to get better and stronger
- It takes specific, targeted exercises to strengthen the tendons up
- If the tendinopathy has been there for a while it can take up to 6 or more months to return to full tendon health
How Can Physio Help
At Phyx. we see lots of people with various tendon injuries pop into the clinic.
At your first appointment we go through your symptoms to give you a diagnosis.
We then advise what course of treatment to take, everyone is different but this usually starts off with hands on therapy to decrease your pain, which leads into exercises to get your tendons nice and strong again.
We love treating clients from the Grange, Henley Beach and West Lakes communities and look forward to helping you soon!
