What are Tendons and Tendonitis?

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The simplest answer is that tendons connect skeletal muscles to bones and tendonitis is an inflammation of tendons. Tendons are tough, fibrous bands of connective tissue and consist mainly of collagen fibres. Tendonitis is a painful inflammation or irritation of a tendon and usually involves a joint.

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A good example of the role of tendons is shown in how the hand and fingers move. The majority of movement here is controlled by muscles in the forearm. These muscles are then attached to the bones of the hand and fingers via tendons which track down the forearm and cross the wrist joint to then attach to the bones, thus facilitating movement. Many of these tendons can be felt on the inside of the wrist as you flex and tense the wrist joint.

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Tendonitis is often the result of physical injury but can also be the result of many types of repetitive movement. Anyone can get tendonitis, and it can occur in almost any area of the body where a tendon connects a bone to a muscle, but most commonly at the elbow (tennis and golfer’s elbow), shoulder (frozen shoulder), knee, hip and ankle (Achilles tendonitis).

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The symptoms of tendonitis very often include pain at the site of the tendon and sometimes the associated muscle to which it attaches and/or  loss or restricted movement of the joint the tendon crosses. Initial treatment includes: avoiding activities that aggravate the problem, resting the injured area, icing the area on the day of the injury, corticosteroids, over the counter painkillers, physiotherapy and acupuncture.

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Tendonitis may take weeks or months to recover from, depending on the severity of the injury; acupuncture and Tui na massage can be very beneficial in shortening recovery time and especially so when treatment begins within 24 hours of the onset of tendonitis.