Anyone ever completely recover from patella tendinosis?

I had it during xc last year, averaging 55-60 mpw. I had to go down to 0 mpw for 4 weeks, then 25-40 for the rest of the season, then three weeks completely off... after that, I was able to work up to averaging 65 ish during track, and 70-75s now, without any problems, knock on wood...

Just take things slow, make sure you are taking your easy days easy. Build back up really slowly. Also, proper warmups/cooldowns/post run stretching seemed to help me a lot. Maybe you just need some time completely off running. I also started taking Glucosamine-msm supplements, and haven't had any problems since. I don't know if that has helped, but I haven't had an injury since..

I developed patella tendonitis the last week in November and was recovered enough to train over 30 miles per week and do workouts until the last week in March. Every time I would try and up my mileage I would re-aggravate it. Even now I still feel it a little after a hillier run or lots of squats and lunges. What helped me the most was doing leg raises with ankle weights to strengthen my quads and excess core work to help correct my running form. When my lower abs got stronger I didn't lean forward as much while I was running and there was less stress on my knees. At least that is what my problem was. Hope it helps a little.

Got patella tendonitis 4 years ago, went to PT, did the excercises, iced all the time. Still have it, I doubt it's ever going away.

same here, 3 years I have been lowing low. Nothing seems to work for me.

Yes.

Stay away from crowned roads.

Ice your knee often and give it time to heal.

Keep pressure off your knee while it's healing.

Walking and an elliptical are excellent when you are not able to run without pain.

I completed recovered from it. Screw the icing. Just do quad strengthening exercises with ankle weights and graduate up to the universal machine where you sit with your legs down and push forward and up on one or two bars to where your leg(s) is (are) nearly horizontal. That was the last piece of my recovery. But I went 15 years without being able to run until doing 2.5 years of those exercises. I spent 2 years in college icing and heating for hours a day and that did nothing. It is all about the strengthening. I continue to do the strengthening exercises every time my knee starts to hurt again, which is not very often.

try a knee strap. seems to be working for me.

Seriously, all you need to do is one-legged squats, 2 sets of 10, every day and it should disappear. Works like a charm, everytime.

Take time totally off. It can take several weeks or several months. Gradually get back into running and ice it alot. Run on a treadmill exclusively until you are pain free at like 20-30mpw because running on cambered roads, uneven ground and going up and down hills can make it flar up.

hurtin wrote:

Has anyone here had patella tendinosis? Have you recovered from it? I developed it this past track season and have been doing PT all summer. It's taking a heck of a long time to heal. I've been able to jog 15 minutes 2 times a week. Any hope that I will be able to train 100% again

I had it throughout the latter half of my college career and for about 3 years afterward. I went through many different phases of rehabilitation plans, long rests (4-6 months on multiple occasions), and eventually resigned to just run through it for as long as I could muster. Eventually it got really bad, but even before that point it severely limited my competitive career. I've been pain free in the knee for about 2.5 years now, doing around 70mpw currently. Yoga was the answer for me. Nothing else--not squats, not chopat bands, not elaborate strengthening and stretching programs--nothing but the full-body attention that yoga requires helped my patellar tendenosis.

I wouldn't presume to give you any more specific advice than that, cause you really ought to find a competent physical therapist and work closely with that person to work through this issue.

But I will say some more general things about patellar tendinosis, and what I have learned about it. One big thing is: if you have patellar tendinosis you have to understand that this is NOT an issue that will go away just with rest. As a previous poster alluded, ice will not really help the problem, it just treats symptoms.

You have to fundamentally change something about how your body works when it runs.

If you research the knee you will learn about how it can withstand an enormous amount of work. Serious flexibility and strength issues are almost certainly at the heart of the injury. The essential problem is that you are channeling a lot of energy through that one tendon (actually a ligament), a lot more than you think, and more than it can handle. This is usually from hip inflexibility, which itself is a complex of other inflexibilities. Because the hips are so tight they don't share in the work, muscle imbalances develop to compensate, and as those imbalances increasingly fail to cover for flexibility issues more and more work gets channeled through the knee.

So, again, if the problem is the mechanics of how you run, it won't help to just take time off. Your knee might feel better at first, but if the same forces are in play that caused the problem in the first place then it's guaranteed to come back. So take a long term approach, think about how to make your body looser and stronger today than it was yesterday, and above all connect with an talented and experienced physical therapist.

The good news is that if you are successful in treating this problem it will be because you have improved how your body works together when you run, and so you will become a faster and more efficient runner as well. I'm faster right now than I ever dreamed I could be back in college, and if I hadn't developed knee problems I might never have made those improvements.

I'm going to be short on this. three year sufferer. went to three different physical therapists, 4 different doctors, did just about everything.

in exchanging injury woes with a D1 track and XC athlete, the individual immediately knew what i was going through.

gave me some advice that i can say i put to good use, extensively.

deep hamstring stretching. DEEP. took about two weeks off as well, kept using anti-inflamatories. started out with long 1.5min to 2min stretches a couple times a day. after working out, i would incorporate that same stretch, but only 45 seconds.

I'm on month three now. completely pain free. doing long runs, rec sports, etc. just making sure my hamstrings get nice and stretched AFTER each.

no problems here. only frustrating part is how long it took me to figure this out.

I\'ve been hurt about 8 months now. Acupuncture has helped some, and I\'m going to start Yoga in a few weeks. My knee is compromised by a super tight IT band, and it\'s taking forever to get that problem under control. I\'ve been using the foam roller to the extent that it\'s left a six inch long bruise along my outer thigh, but the problem seems to reset after a few days if I don\'t keep on it. Physical therapist has me on a \"walk to run\" program, so we\'ll see how that goes, but I\'m not optimistic. Right now I\'m leaning towards a more holistic outlook, yoga, acupunture, dietary changes (for healing), because I\'ve done three rounds of PT already to very little avail. I don\'t know what your general view is on these things, but if I feel like I\'m trying every possible recovery method that it helps me mentally cope with not being able to run a little better. All the advice above sounds good, try it all and see if anything works, and thanks for bringing this up because it helps me too.

using nitroglycerin patches is fairly new but worth giving a try.

1- general leg strengthening. 1 leg squats, quad press, hamstring curls

2- barefoot running. start to incorporate it in slowly and build up to where you can do 10-20% of your weekly mileage barefoot. focus on running with correct form, landing on the forefoot.

3- ice the shit out of it everyday, even if it doesn't particularly hurt.

do both of those and i guarantee your pt will go away. forget about tape, orthotics, cortisone, all the temporary treatments.

I aquired it in the last 3 weeks of my track season this year in my left knee. Tried mustering through the pain and finishing the season but it didn't go so well.

Took 6 weeks off completely from running. Did lots of stretching in that 6 week period - the athletic trainers at my school claimed it was due to an inflexibility issue... who knows. AFter that I slowly built back up to 30 miles a week before I started ramping mileage, and continued stretching after runs. Once I got up to 30 I increased 5-10 miles a week with a little less stretching after runs. I'm currently up to 75 miles a week, pain free, gaining fitness again. The knee still feels a little "weird" for lack of better words - but its pain free.

Complete rest and stretching helped me.

jjjjjjjjjj wrote:

I spent 2 years in college icing and heating for hours a day and that did nothing.

The heating continually increased the inflammation in your knee, which is why it did not heal.

Mark McGwire wrote:

ice will not really help the problem, it just treats symptoms

Ice reduces the inflammation in your knee and the surrounding areas. Ice is very important for healing. The knee would not heal as long as the inflammation kept increasing.

I got it running up a hill. I took five weeks completely off and just swam a little. It was my senior year of HS and I only got one month of training in before the end of the track season.

I am glad that this topic came up on the message board. So far, I have had patella tendinosis for 6 years. I got it really bad in college, and unfortunately I continued running until I felt pain during daily activities like walking. Recently I have resigned myself to taking off as much time as needed to let the tendon fully heal. For years it felt better after I would take a few months off, but as soon as I started running again the pain would gradually resume. Does anyone think taking a year off with extensive stretching and strength training would help be get back to running 20 to 30 miles a week. My concern is that I always come back too soon and am not providing my knees with sufficient time to recover.

Any advice would be appreciated. I am desperate to get back into running.

runner1111 wrote:

I am glad that this topic came up on the message board. So far, I have had patella tendinosis for 6 years. I got it really bad in college, and unfortunately I continued running until I felt pain during daily activities like walking. Recently I have resigned myself to taking off as much time as needed to let the tendon fully heal. For years it felt better after I would take a few months off, but as soon as I started running again the pain would gradually resume. Does anyone think taking a year off with extensive stretching and strength training would help be get back to running 20 to 30 miles a week. My concern is that I always come back too soon and am not providing my knees with sufficient time to recover.

Any advice would be appreciated. I am desperate to get back into running.

I agree you do need down time, and if it's reoccuring, I would take a month off from running. However in that month, you need to do strengthening. I will say stretching does help to a degree, but I would not focus on stretching, it would be a secondary thing for me. What you really need is some PT, and if possible go to a foot doc. and see if you need orthodics, and then also bring your current training shoes and see if they are correct for your feet. But it took about a year for me to get over my problems with those stupid things, but I haven't had problems since (knock on wood) and been able to have some really good training. j/w are you a male or female?