Tendonitis: cure or lifelong treatment?

September 13, 2009 11:47 AM

If you do the exercises and eventually 'cure' your tendonitis, what happens when you stop doing the exercises? Will it just come back or stay gone providing you don't over-do it? Sources?
posted by GleepGlop to health & fitness (6 comments total)

In other words if you are successful in treating it with exercises, is the only thing keeping your tendonitis at bay is if you continue to do the exercises indefinitely, or can you stop doing the exercises once you feel it is gone and only then have to worry about it returning if you treat your tendons in a manner which probably caused the tendonitis in the first place?
posted by GleepGlop at 11:50 AM on September 13

I had ITBS when I ran in high school, and it would get pretty bad, but I went through physical therapy and it stopped. It's been years since I've done the exercises but I only get it now if I run or walk a lot ("over-doing it"), and even then I can tell when it's coming on and take a break, and it'll subside and won't be a problem.
posted by god particle at 11:52 AM on September 13

2nding god particle. I had bad patellar tendonitis when running track in high school, but was able to alleviate it with stretching, rest, ice, and chopat straps. These days (5-7 years later) I can still feel the same flare up after a good run or an extra-long bike ride and I'm assuming if I were to continue the activities like I had to during track season, the same tendonitis would come right back.
posted by kthxbi at 12:00 PM on September 13

Also, this link talks about the differences between a tendonitis caused by tendon overuse vs one caused by some sort of underlying condition such as arthritis. It says the later form is "more difficult to treat and recur[s] more frequently" and suggests stopping all activities that aggravate the tendon. However, with tendonitis caused by overuse, it gives advice for things you can do to to treat the tendonitis and "avoid recurrence". So afaik it depends on the cause.
posted by kthxbi at 12:07 PM on September 13

It depends.

If you were doing something specific that caused the tendonitis, but you have learned not to do that any more, you probably won't get tendonitis again in that area. As others have said, you may note the first signs of a problem again, but going back to exercises should help.

Some other injuries may require constant stretching and rehab exercises indefinitely because that damaged area needs to be kept stronger and more flexible than your usual day to day activities would do. It's not that you're doing or not doing bad things; it's that you need rehab to keep doing specific good things.

I have had one incident of tendonitis, did my stretches, raised my bike seat, and haven't been bothered by it again.

But I also have a bad shoulder (impingement and occasional bursitis, not tendonitis) that I have to stretch, strengthen and baby indefinitely or it does get worse.

So if it hurts when you do dumb thing X while doing Y, get rehab and stop doing dumb thing X, and you should be fine.
posted by maudlin at 12:11 PM on September 13

Thanks, this helps me judge whether the long road of treatment will have a point to it or not. It also occurred to me that said treatment of say 15 negative calf-raises per day is the equivalent of remembering to brush my teeth once a day. For some reason I can never seem to stick with these routines though...
posted by GleepGlop at 12:29 PM on September 13