How to detect acute or chronic knee tendinitis?

How do you detect tendinitis?

If your daily life, work, sport or other activities involve repetitive or overly intense movements, you may feel pain caused by acute or chronic tendinitis.

Knee tendinitis can affect the patellar tendon, located below the tip of the kneecap, or the quadriceps tendon, located above the kneecap.

Simple patellar tendinitis can be treated with an infrapatellar strap made of a material that absorbs mechanical stress.

How do you gradually return to activity when you feel tendon pain?

If the tendinitis is more extensive, a brace that off-loads the stresses — for example the DJO Reaction — is a sound choice.

Besides damping the mechanical stresses on the painful tendons, it spreads these stresses and returns the energy, thereby helping to reduce painful loading overall.

Wearing the brace lets you gradually resume your activity after a recommended period of reduced loading on the tendon.

Nevertheless, it is recommended to ice the painful areas regularly — with compressive icing if possible — after your activities, until the tendon pain disappears.

Physical activity should only be resumed once the tendon pain has gone.

Better to lose a few days of activity than to keep a chronic, painful tendinitis.