What is tendinitis?
Written by:Strictly speaking Tendinopathy as the name suggests is a disease (pathy) tendon (tendino). The tendon is the anatomical structure that connects muscle to bone, if the connection was bone to bone is called ligament. Therefore, the mechanical function is performing transmit force muscle to bone thereby to be movable joint. The incidence of tendinitis is 30-50% of all sports injuries according to various authors.
What are the causes of tendinopathy?
Mainly, there are two main causes: one general and another local.
General causes: within the general causes that affect the tendon may be systemic diseases such as increased blood cholesterol, diabetes, increased uric acid, rheumatic diseases ... or taking certain medications, including antibiotics (ciprofloxacin or Similar, certain cholesterol - lowering drugs, chemotherapy for cancer treatment ...).
Local causes: local causes, are characterized by the concentration of the mechanical load in a given area of the tendon during physical activity. This fact causes damage to the tendon and implementation of repair mechanisms occur. If these are defective tendinopathy occurs. The concentration of loads locally tendon occurs as a result of technical gesture athletic, lower limb morphology, use of unsuitable sports equipment ...
What are the symptoms of tendinitis?
Tendinopathy can occur in three ways, the shape of finding the following. - Finding during the exploration of an area affected by other cause (such as a ligament or meniscus injury ...) joint can be found an alteration in the structure of asymptomatic tendon, ie, without pain. In the medical field, this is called discovery, since the joint is studied looking for an injury and just finding another that has no symptoms.
- Presentation progressively: classically described in four stages
- In the first, the athlete has pain after exercise when cooled
- The second stage or phase occurs when the tendon pain before and after sport, but during the performance of physical exercise pain disappears, this being the last phase in which tendinopathy allows sports
- In the third phase, the tendon pain before, during and after exercise, and sport does not allow normal
- In the fourth phase there has been a tendon rupture, on a degenerated tendon
- Presentation acutely, abruptly. While performing the exercise, the athlete note a sharp pain in the tendon. This indicates that as little, there is a partial tendon rupture and from this event has pain in the affected tendon.
How is tendonitis treated?
Today there is a wide variety of treatments, although each tendinopathy has to be treated by a specialist in medicine and sports traumatology individually.
Should take into account parameters such as time of onset of symptoms, if the patient has a history of systemic disease or taking drugs, if onset is abrupt or aggressive, if the type of pain is superficial or deep, the type of tendon -not Achilles tendon behaves as Rotuliano- tendon, whether or not pathological neovascularization, the existence or not of a degenerative tendon focus on the location of the lesion ...
Can you prevent tendinopathy?
Mechanical, sporting or local involvement causes are easier to prevent, however , is more difficult when the impact of a general problem that hurts the tendon also collaterally. It is to investigate the characteristics of tendinopathy and also investigate the causes that have led to prevent and avoid relapse.
