Patellar Tendonitis

[runlikeagirl]

Hey guys...

I've got a pretty severe case of this, mostly b/c i keep running on it. I've had it for a few months and it was more of a nagging injury, but now it's so inflamed it wakes me up at night and if I just move it wrong it's tender as crap.
I've tried doing alternative cardio like cycling, stairmaster, and elliptical and they all aggravate it. Any suggestions for alternative cardio if I'm going to have to put my running shoes up for a lil while???
Also, any advice for a quick recovery and prevention?

[captkirk]

swim

[Gi-Gi]

swim

I'm with cap,swim. My mother had a bad injury once and did a lot of water jogging to keep her fitness up. Hope you recover quickly.

[captkirk]

You can run in place and maintain conditioning for 6 weeks. It requires proper floatation, and a pool deep enough to do it. Runners World had an article several years ago about that. I may be wrong but I don't think that would hurt patellar tendinitis. Eccentric strength training should also be helpful. You may need to see a Physical therapist to learn how to do that properly

[runlikeagirl]

thank u so much!

I had to do that with a stress fracture back when i ran for Aspel...had totally forgot about it. Oh man, that was so boring

Whatever it takes, I guess!

[Bryan Jones]

I'll tell you what I was told in March by my doctor when I had the same issue.

Don't run for six weeks at all. Then go run for 3 miles. If it doesn't hurt you can start running again no more than 15 miles a week and no longer than 3-5 miles at a time for the next month. After that you can start building your mileage up again. In the meantime if it doesn't hurt you can bike or swim.

That may or may not work for you. It did for me. And yeah not running for six weeks sucked. But I haven't had any issues since. I also got put on a prescription strength anti-inflammatory, so you should definitely at least talk to a doctor about it.

Consider this a prime opportunity to start doing some multi-sport training and come spring you'll be ready to do some triathlons. :)

[sidewinder]

Geeeezzzz Its tendonitis.....not a broken leg.....sometimes I think doctors treat us like we are old and feable....I think they work with too many elderly people and don't realize what a fit person is capable of....they spend too much time covering their a^^ and therefore don't get to the problem at hand.....and thats my opinion.

[Clydesdale]

I agree with Sidewinder! Seems like we're told way to often to stop running, take anti-inflammatories, and come back in two weeks. After the types of injuries I've had through the years, I'm convinced most of them were a result of either neglecting post run stretching, overtraining, or just plain stupidity! For me however, when I had P. Ten. it was because I had a muscle imbalance with my inner quad muscle(one of you PT's will have to tell us the official name) The trick for me was to do modified lower leg extensions to strengthen the associated muscle. Did the trick for me! About once a year my knee lets me know I need to quit being lazy and get back in the gym. As far as biking, swimming, being good to help stop the problem. From what I found and read, biking may even make the problem worse, since you never use that motion through the pedal stroke. I did find however that swimming was an excellent prescription for strengthening the associated muscle, if you didn't have great swimming mechanics that is! Since your legs are almost always extended during swimming, this modified extension of your lower leg is just what the Dr. ordered! They even had me fully extend the affected leg and hold it up about a foot or so off the ground with a weight on my ankle, while laying on the floor. Don't know about you, or even if this should have worked or not, but it worked for me!

[runlikeagirl]

Thanks for the input Bryan. I know 6 wks off would heal any injury...I think I'm going to agree with Mills (clydesdale)

Cycling does make it worse and I think it was initally brought on when i started hitting the bike hard this summer for a triathlon. Which would make sense if I had a muscle imbalance b/c cycling uses so much of the quad. Now, running just pisses it off...excuse my language

I have found with Tendonitis I have had in other areas, that I can get away with continuing to run but I've had this for so long that Im ready to be done with it. I would do some quad exercises but its' so tender, any kind of strain sends me through the roof. I can barely climb stairs...lol

Looks like the verdict is the pool

[Clydesdale]

When mine was that bad I did straight leg lifts, didn't bother it. After the pain subsided I started the modified leg extensions gently at first, then normally to ward off another flare-up.

[athletesinpain]

Most of the time, IT Band problems are not a problem at all. They are a symptom and the problem is usually somewhere else. I have treated this and numerous other athletic injuries for almost 20 years and 95% of the time, it's going to the weakest link in your chain that begun to break over a period of time. Treating the IT Band itself is usually only part of the therapy that is needed. Taking time off, in my professional opinion, only slows down the pain that is present at the time, but it will return when you began training again. Give me a call anytime. I will not charge you a thing to do just an evaluation on you and we can see where the problem actually is.
501 366-3145

This will also apply to Patellar Tendonitis.