Has a particular joint been making your life miserable lately? If a knee, foot, elbow, shoulder, or wrist feels stiff and painful every time you try to move it, you could be suffering from a common malady known as tendonitis. Tendonitis most commonly occurs due to overuse of the joint in question, which makes it especially common (and troublesome) for athletes and workers who perform the same demanding joint motions countless times each day. The good news is that you don't have to live with this inconvenient, sometimes disabling condition. Here at Zaker Chiropractic in Torrance, San Pedro, and Newport Beach CA, we can administer chiropractic care and other conservative forms of tendonitis treatment to help you regain pain-free function.
To understand how you got tendonitis in the first place, it's helpful to understand how the tendons normally work. These tough connective tissues attach bones to muscles at joints, giving the muscles the leverage they need to articulate those joints. The more stress you regularly place on a given joint, the harder the tendons have to work. Over time, micro-tears begin to form in the tendons. When your joints are subjected to repetitive motion constantly, the damage accumulates faster than the body can repair it, creating the chronic inflammation we know as tendonitis. Common tendonitis causes include:
Some forms of tendonitis are so common in specific sports that they're named after those sports. "Tennis elbow" (lateral epicondylitis) is a good example. The demands of swinging a tennis racket over and over can inflame the tendons along the outer side of the elbow, where they're attached to bony projections called epicondyles. A similar condition, which afflicts the epicondyles on the inner side of the elbow, causes problems for golfers, hence the term "golfer's elbow." Other examples of sports-related tendonitis include "runner's knee," "pitcher's shoulder" and "swimmer's shoulder."
Tendonitis symptoms can vary depending on the severity of the inflammation. Some degree of aching and stiffness when you move the joint is common -- but the pain may continue even when you're resting, interrupting your sleep. You may also notice swelling around the affected joint.
Don't assume that a nagging case of tendonitis will somehow resolve itself. The longer you try to "play through the pain," the more damage your tendon will accumulate and the worse your condition will become. Even if you give your painful tendon a nice long rest so it can repair itself, the problem will recur unless the original cause is addressed and corrected. That's where chiropractic for tendonitis can prove extraordinarily helpful.
Zaker Chiropractic can help you get over your tendonitis by treating not only the symptoms but also the source of the chronic inflammation. We begin by performing a careful analysis of your posture, stance, gait, range of joint motion, spinal alignment, and of course your symptoms. This evaluation helps us confirm a case of tendonitis as opposed to some other condition that produces similar pain, such as bursitis or muscle strain. We may discover that components within the joint are out of balance, making you especially prone to tendonitis -- or we may find a larger musculoskeletal imbalance that subjects your tissues to unnecessary, abnormal stresses.
Once we understand the exact nature of your underlying problem, we can create your personalized tendonitis treatment plan. Our chiropractor may prescribe a combination of:
Tendonitis doesn't have to be a game-changer in your life. Take control, starting today, by calling Zaker Chiropractic at our San Pedro, Torrance, or Newport Beach office. We know how to tame tendonitis!
For more answers about how we can help you relieve pain without drugs or surgery, make an appointment with Zaker Chiropractic. Our chiropractors provide a wide variety of services to diagnose and treat your condition. Zaker Chiropractic has several locations to serve you. Call (949) 734-4454 for an appointment with Newport Beach Pain & Wellness, (424) 235-1562 for South Bay Pain & Wellness, or (310) 831-0003 for an appointment with San Pedro Pain & Wellness. Each clinic offers a multidisciplinary list of services.
