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Tendonitis And Tendinitis Physiotherapy

In our physio clinics, our senior physiotherapists commonly see and treat patients with tendonitis (also known as tendinitis or tendinopathy, these terms are used interchangeably).

Tendinitis refers to tendon injuries that involves a relatively larger injury that usually comes with inflammation. An example is the Achilles tendinitis, which of course, affects the achilles tendon (see picture insert), or the patellar tendonitis (also known as jumper's knee, that affects the patellar tendon).

Common tendinitis injuries

Tendinitis is a type of soft tissue injury, and most of the time, our patients report these tendinitis in their

  • upper limbs (shoulder, arm, elbow, forearm, wrist, thumb, hand, fingers)
  • lower limbs (thighs, knees, calves, ankle, feet, toes)

compared to their body and hips. Of course it ranges depends on each indvidual's preference

  • the way they move
  • the sports/activities they participate in
  • the work they do
  • the responsibilities they have

A simple example is that a football fan/player will more likely to develop tendinitis in their lower limb (such as Achilles tendinitis) compared to a musician who will more likely develop tendinitis in their shoulders, neck and upper limbs.

How We Diagnose tendinitis

On the first session, our senior physiotherapists and senior hand therapists will do an indepth biomechanical and medical history taking assessment, taking note of

  • symptoms including pain, stiffness etc and their severity/frequency
  • location of pains, if there is more than one
  • plausible core causes of these tendonitis

Most of the time, our physio patients report that they experience pain that increases

  • during activities/exercises
  • after activities/exercises

In many cases, there is residual localized/joint stiffness after activities and with periods of rest or immobilization (eg stiffness in the mornings).

Physiotherapy tendonitis Treatment

Most of the treatments that we provide is very conservative with emphasis of little-to-no-pain physiotherapy.

Patients during the acute stages of inflammation, pain and swelling needs to rest more first, any unnecessary extra movements that is forced will also serve to aggravate the inflammation, causing more pain, and more stiffness. Most of our patients recover within 2-3 days for the initial recovery, and take about 4-6 weeks for a complete recovery.

We will complement the medical professionals side of pharmaceutics, who often provide NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) by providing

Some of our patients, though, even after recovering, requests and continues to come back regularly for our deep tissue massage therapy intermittently to rest their muscles.