Hello,

I am a 22year old male who has been suffering with patellar tendonosis for 3years now! I think I have actually become obsessed with getting better and have read so much about the condition. At times  I have also been very depressed and felt like it is never going to get better.

How it began in 2009

It began by playing basketball too intently in the space of a few weeks and I had tendonitis in both patellar tendons. I never properly rested my right knee and subsequently kept reinjuring the tendon . I was 19 and very sporty (football, basketball, tennis) - I thought i was invinvible!

Getting better Summer 2011

Last Summer the knee got better and I strongly believe i was due to eccentric squats. It is so important to start with almost no weight and slowly increase the weight. I went from 2 legged squats to 1 leg squats with 25kg backpack on an incline board over a 6month period. I was cycling almost 25km a day and feeling good again. I was also playing football and tennis but being carefull.

Back to Square 1!

I was feeling so good again that I played basketball in Sept 11. My tendon the next day felt pain and I was limping around for a few weeks. The knee felt ok walking but I couldn't do any sports again or sit with it bent for long.

Back to Square 1 again!

One of the worst decisions was seeing Dr Ralph Rogers at the London Orphaepic clinic. I had some PRP injections into the tendon in Jan 2012 and I am sure it made me 10 times worse.

The swelling from the injections never went away and my hoffas fat pad was very infammed. The tendon and surrounding tissue would swell up everyday just from walking and i was painfull all the time. I put up with this for 5months before surgery!

Surgery

4 weeks ago I had open and arthroscopic surgery to remove a small bone spur and a decompression inflammed tissue at the inferior pole. The surgeon said that he reomved 1/3 of the tendon! He said that the bone spur was causing all of the tendon problems. Interestingly I had Osgood Schlatters when I was 14 and have an bone spur at the tibial tuiberosity (which does not cause any problems)

Recovery

I am now 4 weeks post op and have about 110degrees of ROM. I can walk without crutches but sill finding stairs difficult. The tendon and surrounding tissue is still quite swollen but I have already noticed that I can sit with the knee bent for longer without the same pain where the bone spur most have been pressing into the tendon.

At the moment I am still doing static quad work as the area is still too sore for even straight leg raises. I really am hoping I can get back to he sports I love in about 4-6months time.

I would love to hear from anyone else with this problem, the time it took to recover and the steps they took in physio for recovery.

If anyone out there is suffering from this then please ask any questions as I feel like I know everything!

One of the worst decisions was seeing Dr Ralph Rogers at the London Orphaepic clinic. I had some PRP injections into the tendon in Jan 2012 and I am sure it made me 10 times worse.

I have a similar condition but declined the PRP. 
4 weeks is still quite early.  This surgery has a long recovery time and 4-6 months sounds faster than what I have been told.  Many athletes with this surgery are out for a year.   If you had success with the incline squats why did you not continue? 

Oh I forgot to say.

I am sure the bone spur grew as a result of tendontitis and inflammation. I also had Osgood Schlatters when I was younger and have large bone spurs at the tibial tuberosity (that don't bother me).

The body seems to grow bone when you have inflammation in a tendon which made my condition 10 times worse so I had to have the bone out in surgery.

Have you tried eccentric squats? I thoroughly recommend it and be really carefull not to ramp up the wieght too quickly.

Sam

Hi,

2 surgeons and 2 radiographers missed the bone spur. I found i myself looking at my MRI images and showed the surgeon on he day of surgery. He then said that it definietly needed to come out! I will try and post an image of it later.

How long have you had tendonitis? I hope you can heal quickly but you must be patient with this condition. I made mine 10times worse by continuing to play basketball and football (initially i felt fine after warming up)

My knee is progressing well since the sugery so I am so glad I went for it. 9 weeks post op and I am doing leg extensions and straight leg raises with a 2.5kg ankle weight. I hope to start cycling and eccentric squats in abou 4 weeks time.

Were you able to feel the spur on outside of your knee by pressing on the tendon?

Not surprised the radiologist missed this I do not feel this is a field of much expertise.   

I have a similar issue with my knees.

I've recently started doing the eccentric squats along with some glute and hamstring exercises. Before that I had decided to take off as much activity as possible, so my knees were feeling pretty good. But then I started the squats.....so here's my question:

When you started the eccentric squats, how did your knees feel for the first couple of weeks?

Right now the pain ramped back up since I had been doing practically nothing for 3 weeks. But this pain, while pretty big in magnitude, isn't as sharp or as concentrated as the pain I was having before. Somehow, when standing from a sitting position, I feel as though the knee and tendon is stronger, but it still hurts.

This reminds of how a muscle hurts a day or two after working out. But this isn't a muscle, and I have no idea what the tendon/knee is supposed to feel like with the eccentric squats. Any info would be appreciated. <3

Sorry to hear about your suffer


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