Physical Therapy in Boise For Tendonitis

I treat numerous patients in my physical therapy clinic who have some form of Tendonitis. A tendonitis can be very painful and debilitating. Some of the common tendonitis problems that people come to physical therapy for are:

• Plantar Fasciitis (heel pain)
• Tennis Elbow (elbow pain)
• Achilles Tendonitis
• Patellar Tendonitis (pain below the knee cap)

At times these conditions can be so painful that it’s hard for patients to believe they are caused by a simple inflammation of a tendon.

Tendons are the soft tissues that connect muscle to bone. If you have cooked with chicken before you have probably seen the part of the meat that tapers down and connects to the bone. That hard narrow portion of the muscle that you cut or pull away from the bone is the tendon. Muscles in our bodies have the same attachment points and it is these tendons that can get sore and irritated with certain activities.

Having pain in a tendon is generally referred to as a tendonitis, which means an inflammation of a tendon. Inflammation is a slight, or sometimes not so slight swelling of the tendon accompanied by pain and sometimes increased heat or warmth. A tendonitis is generally point tender, which means you can pin point the area of pain and inflammation by pressing with your finger.

People will come to physical therapy for tendonitis problems because such problems don’t easily heal on their own. Once a tendon becomes inflamed it can stay sore and inflamed for a long time. This is because there is very little blood flow around tendons and healthy blood flow is one of the primary things that our bodies need to heal on their own.

Physical therapy treatment for tendonitis is focused on two things:

• Eliminating the pain and inflammation by increasing blood flow
• Resolving the root cause of the tendonitis with stretching and strengthening

Inflammation Treatment:

There are a number of techniques used in physical therapy for reducing inflammation:

Cross-fiber friction massage directly to the tendon increases blood flow for healing and breaks up scar tissue

Ultrasound / ice contrast provides deep heating to the tendon which increases blood flow and the ice massage constricts blood flow. The combination of these two things provides a pumping action that has an overall stimulating effect for increasing blood flow to the deep portion of the tendon that attaches to the bone.

Iontophoresis and phonophoresis are two ways of delivering anti-inflammatory medication through the skin down to the surface of the tendon.

Addressing The Root Cause:

Correcting the root cause of the tendonitis is also important so that it doesn’t come back once it has resolved. This is done by identifying and treating any tight muscles that may be causing increased stress on the tendons during activities. In the case of Achilles tendonitis a tight calf muscle is generally the culprit or in with patellar tendonitis tight quad muscles are generally to blame. In such cases a stretching routine is used to lengthen the muscles so they do not continue put stress on the tendons.

Weak muscles may also be the cause of a tendonitis. If certain muscles are too weak they may not be controlling the joints in the proper way during activities such as running, walking or hiking. Joints that move improperly due to weak muscles can also put undue stress on tendons causing inflammation. In these cases a specialized strengthening routine is used to build up the weak muscles and eliminate the stress on the tendons.

Physical therapy treatment for a tendonitis generally takes about 3 – 5 weeks of treatment with and average of 2 clinic visits per week. A clinic visit can take anywhere from 30 – 90 minutes.  Patients are also given a home exercise program to do in between visits.

For more information about scheduling an appointment at our physical therapy clinic visit our website at: http://www.promoptboise.com/