Is Mild Long Term Tendonitis Curable?

by James

Hi Joshua,

You helped me a few months back with a muscle tightness and loss of strength in my right arm with a possible tendonitis in the forearm and "L' joint between the forearm and bicep. Your help was great so I'm back.

It seems I do have tendonitis? From brief clinic visits. It seems fairly faint and only becomes noticeable as something when I use the forearm and bicep.

I can feel around the tendons without any irritation at all, nothing. I only notice unusual sensations after I use it, hard to describe but it seems like the tendon may be a little achey and fatigued, something seems pronounced like it's getting my attention, for maybe a day or so afterwards.

The process I have been through has been long and somewhat confusing so I'm not sure when I'm over analyzing things and when there are legitimate concerns.

I did however, start to have the burning sensation in this "L" spot five days ago and drove to the walk in clinic where the doctor saw me twenty minutes later and we felt around the tendons and did some twisting etc and there was no irritation at all.

Is it possible I have a mild form of tendonitis that didn't heal properly over these past six months or so?

How should I view it and what should I do now and be prepared for in the future?

Basically can I rid myself of this? I have been taking 3000mg of MSM twice daily with some camu camu berry powder for the past week.

I have just started icing my arm with an ice cube until melted and then following it with hot running water in an attempt to encourage blood flow. I'll be doing this as much as possible hopefully five times per day. How are these techniques? Are these symptoms typical of tendonitis?

Thanks again,

James

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Joshua Answers:

Hi James.

Answering your questions backwards.

Icing cubing 5x/day is a great idea. I would always end with cold instead of heat.

You have an inflammation process, one aspect of which is that fluid gets trapped in the area. Heat brings blood to the area, which is great, but ideally you want to always finish on cold.

Can you rid yourself of this? Ultimately, yes. It's just a matter of doing the right things. Half of the battle is identifying where the right things need to be applied....

Basically, wherever it hurts, ice the hell out of it, constant light gentle stretching, self massage the tight muscles frequently through the day for just a few seconds. It's all about repetitive input to the structure.

Yes, it's possible you have tendonitis. You certainly have a tendonitis dynamic, which means a slow Downward Spiral of increasing pain and tightness.

That burning sensation is basically a flood of Pain Enhancing Chemical from the Inflammation Process. Squeeze it out, like squeezing a sponge, and it won't burn.

It is a myth that tendonitis injury heals completely back to 100% if you just give it time and rest.

Tendonitis is really a process that is either going in a Downward Spiral or an Upward Spiral.

Sometimes the body is a place where there is pain but there's no clearly identified source. Walk in clinics and the vast majority of doctors just shrug their shoulders. They're out of luck if there is no clearly identified injury.

Tendonitis dynamic is much more subtle that that. Tightness, inflammation, and an over-protective nervous system can cause severe symptoms. Any one of those can cause severe symptoms. And there's no test for any of those in western medicine.

Burning and weakness? Inflammation and a nervous system on high alert against more injury.

Not the only issue, but I'd say you have some definitely have a bicep tendon issue, which is probably really a situation where your bicep is too tight and is constantly giving 'bad' information to the nervous system. And it's all slowly downhill from there until different information starts getting sent.

What you describe is more a nervous system response issue, as opposed to damage of the tendon itself.

More questions!




Joshua Tucker, B.A., C.M.T.
The Tendonitis Expert
www.TendonitisExpert.com