I have severe tendonitis in my left knee. There’s fluid in and around the patella, and it basically hurts all the time. Like right now, while typing my knee hurts. Docors and physical therapists orders are to chill on heavy lower body pushing [read:no squats] and obviously no running and/or jumping. That’s a problem for me. Long story short, I wanted there to be a thread dedicated to fixing tendonitis. If anyone has any cool exercises or tricks, please share. Thanks.
Where in Texas do you live? Anytime after 2nd weekend in June I could take a look at it if you’re in or north of Dallas.
Find a orthopedic massage therapist(Like me) (orthomassage.net) and make sure they are fully certified. They will evaluate the hell out of your knee.
Without evaluation, tendonitis is a vague and usually incorrect diagnosis. Could be tendonitis, tendonosis, or anything relating to any of the four quad muscles, popliteus, plantaris, any of the three hamstrings, TFL/ITB, etc…
It’s been diagnosed via MRI as severe tendonitis. I got it checked out by one of the leading researchers on the human knee [who’s name escapes me] and was referred by him to a pt named Royce Bowman, who’s supposed to be at the top of the food chain in his field. His diagnosis was that both of my knees “are a mess”. Had surgery on my right knee last year and don’t feel like the people I went to did a good job.
You might take it easy a while on leg stuff if its just started hurting bad recent and then ease back into workin out. I fractured my patella and tore some stuff a while back so I can relate with you on knee pain.
If you could get a J or O brace that’d prolly help. For my Physical Therapy they had me do hill climb on the bike alot, lunges and leg extensions with bands since running and jumpin was ruff on the joints.
[quote]burgess2388 wrote:
You might take it easy a while on leg stuff if its just started hurting bad recent and then ease back into workin out. I fractured my patella and tore some stuff a while back so I can relate with you on knee pain.
If you could get a J or O brace that’d prolly help. For my Physical Therapy they had me do hill climb on the bike alot, lunges and leg extensions with bands since running and jumpin was ruff on the joints. [/quote]
As stated the docs and pt’s have advised against any lowerbody pushing for awhile. The pain’s been pretty bad for a few years now but just got an actual diagnosis about a month ago. What’s a J or O brace?
There a sleeve type brace that goes over your knee and helps stabilize the patella. My knee hurts all the time under load but the brace does help with it.
[quote]burgess2388 wrote:
There a sleeve type brace that goes over your knee and helps stabilize the patella. My knee hurts all the time under load but the brace does help with it.[/quote]
Like a cho-pat? I’ve used those and they do help to a degree.
No not quite. Google J Brace
[quote]burgess2388 wrote:
No not quite. Google J Brace[/quote]
Thanks man. I have seen those but didn’t know it was for patella issues. I’ll go and pick 2 up and see if it helps.
I’ve seen rave reviews for vibram five fingers shoes in terms of easing knee pain.
WhiteFlash,
What previous injuries/surgeries have you had with your knees? How long have you had the symptoms of “tendonitis”? Do you have a specific results diagnosis from the MRI? Which tendon did they say had tendonitis? Patellar? Quadraceps? IT Band? Was there just inflammation around the tendon, fluid/swelling in the joint space or under the patella, significant tearing of a tendon? The more details you can give, the better.
The J Strap knee brace is generally used to help with patellar laxity and patellar subluxations, but may still provide some benefit for patellar tendonosis/tendonitis. The Cho-pat strap can help as well. An open patellar knee sleeve will provide similar results to the J Strap, but just not as much support for patellar subluxations. But in the long run, the brace will only fix things in the short run. You need to address the underlying cause of the problem.
How is your ankle/hip mobility? Hip IR? As goose27 recommended, find somebody who can do a functional assessment of your body. Orthopedic surgeons are good, but generally do not provide a full functional assessment. If you can find a qualified practitioner who can give a functional movement screen, that would be ideal to find your muscular imbalances from a strength and mobility standpoint.
For immediate results, I find fish oils, circumin, and lucosamine/chondroitin supplements all help. Once you are able to answer some of my questions, I may be able to give better insight. Best of luck with everything!
I have petallar tendonitis in both knees. After one surgery and tons and tons of physical therapy and research I found what eases the pain is to take a NSAID prior to squatting or running of any matter.
In addition to the NSAID, I have found the best knee brace (After tons of knee braces) is a brace that was compressive against my patella tendon.
I use a knee brace that has been disallowed in many federations because of the belt loop and tightening action and so forth.
It is a knee brace that has 3 straps I can tighten that would fit above, on and below the knee. The straps have allowed to keep my knees warm and put the right amount of compression against my tendon. The compression is adjustable and I have found my sweet spot where is it border line cut off blood flow.
Sergeant Q,
What surgery did you have done out of curiosity? Patellar debridement?
To the OP -
First and foremost, if you’ve got a ton of swelling, continuing to train isn’t going to help anything. You need to get rid of that, as it will impede your mobility, motor control, and strength.
Once there, you need to determine the root cause of your dysfunction. As many above have noted, it could be ankle mobility issues, hip mobility issues, poor motor control/strength around the hips, poor technique, or a host of other things. Without knowing what exactly you’re dealing with, it’s impossible to give you a good diagnosis and/or treatment plan.
Regardless, getting the swelling down is priority one. Without that, you’ll never get a good idea of what’s going on.
Good luck!
MR
[quote]LevelHeaded wrote:
WhiteFlash,
What previous injuries/surgeries have you had with your knees? How long have you had the symptoms of “tendonitis”? Do you have a specific results diagnosis from the MRI? Which tendon did they say had tendonitis? Patellar? Quadraceps? IT Band? Was there just inflammation around the tendon, fluid/swelling in the joint space or under the patella, significant tearing of a tendon? The more details you can give, the better.
The J Strap knee brace is generally used to help with patellar laxity and patellar subluxations, but may still provide some benefit for patellar tendonosis/tendonitis. The Cho-pat strap can help as well. An open patellar knee sleeve will provide similar results to the J Strap, but just not as much support for patellar subluxations. But in the long run, the brace will only fix things in the short run. You need to address the underlying cause of the problem.
How is your ankle/hip mobility? Hip IR? As goose27 recommended, find somebody who can do a functional assessment of your body. Orthopedic surgeons are good, but generally do not provide a full functional assessment. If you can find a qualified practitioner who can give a functional movement screen, that would be ideal to find your muscular imbalances from a strength and mobility standpoint.
For immediate results, I find fish oils, circumin, and lucosamine/chondroitin supplements all help. Once you are able to answer some of my questions, I may be able to give better insight. Best of luck with everything![/quote]
I tore some chunks off the meniscus of my right knee, and those chunks got under the knee cap and did some damge. That’s the one I had surgery on. According to the PT the patella on this knee doesn’t track right either. The patella of the left knee was diagnosed via MRI as “severe tendonitis”. There’s fluid in and around the patella, and there’s signinficant scar tissue built up as well. Also, something about fluid and bursa-something, but I don’t remember exactly. That pain has been there for at least 2&1/2 years. Both knees hurt pretty much nonstop, but the left is worse. Some days it throbs, some days it’s sharp, grinding pain. But, it always hurts. The right knee [the one that I had surgery on] hasn’t felt right since the surgery. I feel like they did a lousy job. I’ve tried high doses of fish oil for months at a time but felt no difference. I’m currently taking double the recommended dose of Glucosamine/chondroitin, but have only been doing that consistently for the past 2 weeks or so. I’ve been foam rolling, doing dynamic mobility for the hips/hamstrings/ankles, icing and static stretching at night, but need to do these things more consistently. If I left anything out let me know. Thank you for your help.
EDIT: Oh yeah, anytime I dip below a quarter squat my right knee creaks. Loudly. People around me can hear it and usually make comments about it. It’s not really painful, but I definitely feel it.
[quote]SergeantQ wrote:
I have petallar tendonitis in both knees. After one surgery and tons and tons of physical therapy and research I found what eases the pain is to take a NSAID prior to squatting or running of any matter.
In addition to the NSAID, I have found the best knee brace (After tons of knee braces) is a brace that was compressive against my patella tendon.
I use a knee brace that has been disallowed in many federations because of the belt loop and tightening action and so forth.
It is a knee brace that has 3 straps I can tighten that would fit above, on and below the knee. The straps have allowed to keep my knees warm and put the right amount of compression against my tendon. The compression is adjustable and I have found my sweet spot where is it border line cut off blood flow.[/quote]
Thanks Sarge.
[quote]Mike Robertson wrote:
To the OP -
First and foremost, if you’ve got a ton of swelling, continuing to train isn’t going to help anything. You need to get rid of that, as it will impede your mobility, motor control, and strength.
Once there, you need to determine the root cause of your dysfunction. As many above have noted, it could be ankle mobility issues, hip mobility issues, poor motor control/strength around the hips, poor technique, or a host of other things. Without knowing what exactly you’re dealing with, it’s impossible to give you a good diagnosis and/or treatment plan.
Regardless, getting the swelling down is priority one. Without that, you’ll never get a good idea of what’s going on.
Good luck!
MR
RobertsonTrainingSystems.com[/quote]
Hey Mike. I bought “Bulletproof Knees”, but lost the first two phases of the proram at the gym, haha. I can do deads and most hamstring moves damn near pain free, but if I do any pushing moves [squats, lunges, step-ups, whatever] it kills. As I said to LevelHeaded, I’ve been doing lots of foam rolling, dynamic mobility and static stretching, and have been icing the patella almost nightly but I do need to be more consistent with everything. Thanks for stopping by.
[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
I tore some chunks off the meniscus of my right knee, and those chunks got under the knee cap and did some damge. That’s the one I had surgery on. According to the PT the patella on this knee doesn’t track right either. The patella of the left knee was diagnosed via MRI as “severe tendonitis”. There’s fluid in and around the patella, and there’s signinficant scar tissue built up as well. Also, something about fluid and bursa-something, but I don’t remember exactly. That pain has been there for at least 2&1/2 years. Both knees hurt pretty much nonstop, but the left is worse. Some days it throbs, some days it’s sharp, grinding pain. But, it always hurts. The right knee [the one that I had surgery on] hasn’t felt right since the surgery. I feel like they did a lousy job. I’ve tried high doses of fish oil for months at a time but felt no difference. I’m currently taking double the recommended dose of Glucosamine/chondroitin, but have only been doing that consistently for the past 2 weeks or so. I’ve been foam rolling, doing dynamic mobility for the hips/hamstrings/ankles, icing and static stretching at night, but need to do these things more consistently. If I left anything out let me know. Thank you for your help.
EDIT: Oh yeah, anytime I dip below a quarter squat my right knee creaks. Loudly. People around me can hear it and usually make comments about it. It’s not really painful, but I definitely feel it.[/quote]
With your right knee, I am assuming they did a meniscectomy and debridement under your patella. In both cases with the surgery, you are set up for arthritis down the road - just the nature of the beast. The mal-tracking of your right patella may be somewhat due to the damage and surgery, but can probably be fixed with some proper strengthening of musculature associated with the knee and around the knee, as well as addressing mobility issues at the hip and ankle.
With your left knee, it could very well be a tendonosis issue, where it is a poor healing rather than just an inflammation issue that you’d find in tendinitis, or possible a combination of both. You do have 3 bursa sacs associated with the knee, so you may have bursitis (inflammation of the bursa sac) or you may have had a mild rupture of the sac.
Continue with the rolling and mobility work and like you said, begin to do it on a more continual basis. As for the creaking when you squat, that can be due to the arthritis and bursa inflammation. As Mike Robertson said, you need to control the swelling/inflammation before continuing on too aggressively with anything else. Did the doctor prescribe any anti-inflammatory meds?
If you have access to enough ice to make an ice bath, this is a technique (I just call it Sponge Soak) that I have found to help a lot with ankles, elbows, and some knee situations involving swelling. I am not sure if it will help you, but it may be worth a shot.
You will need: The ice bath, 6-12 normal non-abbrasive rectangle/square sponges (number used will depend on the area being treated), and an ace wrap (4" or 6" double works best). Make the ice bath, soak the sponges and ace wrap in the ice bath (you will have to unwrap the ace wrap, soak it so it is completely saturated, and then re-wrap it before wrapping it on your body part). Place the soaked sponges around your knee (in your situation), specifically around the patellar tendon and patella. Get lateral and medial to the patella as well and you can place some on the posterior aspect of your knee too, but just be caution of the popliteal nerve that runs back there. Wrap the sponges on with the ace wrap as you place them on, and then tuck the ace wrap in itself to hold it in place. Place your leg in the ice bath and flex and extend your knee for 10 minutes. You will get an active pump from the venous return, as well as an external “pump”/effleurage massage effect from the sponges filling with water and emptying of water. There is a great debate as to whether or not “ice therapy” actually decreases inflammation (that is a whole separate conversation), but I do feel that the ice at least decreases cell death and decreases pain receptors to allow for a greater willingness to move the limb, which in turn can help with flushing out the area to decrease swelling/inflammation. This technique can be done with other body parts as well.
If do you try the Sponge Soak, let me know how it goes. Sorry for some of the vague answers as well. It is difficult to recommend anything without being able to see what is going on. But as I recommended in an earlier post, if you have the ability time wise and financially to see a qualified professional who can do a FMS or some kind of movement assessment, it would be well worth it as then you can focus on exactly what your limitations are. And you definitely made a wise investment in purchasing BP Knees. That should help tremendously.
Best of luck and keep us updated!
Level, thank you for taking your time and helping me. Your answers were thorough and understandable. Again, thanks. I wanted to add that in the right knee, even though it was my MCL that was “doctored”, the inside of my knee feels “empty” and pops constantly, and the inside tear drop is significantly atrophied from where it was. There’s popping and catching on the outside as well, but it’s less painful than the inside popping and catching.
[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
Level, thank you for taking your time and helping me. Your answers were thorough and understandable. Again, thanks. I wanted to add that in the right knee, even though it was my MCL that was “doctored”, the inside of my knee feels “empty” and pops constantly, and the inside tear drop is significantly atrophied from where it was. There’s popping and catching on the outside as well, but it’s less painful than the inside popping and catching.[/quote]
Just to clarify a couple things, did you have your meniscus repaired or your MCL? In your previous post you said with your right knee you had a meniscal tear and part of it went under your patella and required surgery for repair. The MCL is a ligament in your knee and the meniscus is something completely different. A part of the MCL does attach to your medial meniscus though, so I’m not sure if that is where the injury occurred, but generally MCL injuries are non-surgically treated.
Also, when you say the “inside of your knee feels empty” and “there’s popping and catching on the outside as well, but it’s less painful than the inside popping and catching” - when you use the word “inside” do you mean deep, within the knee or the medial side of the knee (more towards the midline of your body/groin; the side that the tear drop muscle (VMO) is)?