Tendon injuries can take months or more than a year to heal. In addition, the injury severity has a significant impact on recovery time. While a minor strain can put you on the couch for a few weeks, a complete tendon tear typically requires surgery to repair.
Tendons are fibrous strands that attach muscle to bone. Usually, tendon injuries happen due to strain from exercise, lifting heavy objects, or unexpected falls. They are often very painful, triggering a lot of swelling from the body designed to limit movement and prevent more damage.
People with tendon injuries are understandably concerned with how the injury will affect their life quality. They balance the decision to get surgery with how it will impact their ability to move at work or keep exercising.
Here’s some helpful information on dealing with tendon injuries and the healing process.
What You Can Expect
Tendon strains and minor tears typically don’t require surgery. Instead, doctors will likely prescribe rest, icing, and other means of controlling inflammation.
However, even minor tendon injuries likely come with stiffness, pain, and difficulty moving. Minor tendons may be easier to deal with, but major tendons like the Achilles tendon can be acutely painful and take much longer to heal.
Complete tears take much longer to heal and may be impossible without surgical intervention. First, surgeons will go inside the body to suture the tendon back together. After surgery, long rest periods are necessary for the tendon to regain strength.
How to Recover
Whether you need surgery or not, recovery takes time. However, your approach to recovery will affect how long you’re out of commission and the severity of the pain you experience. Here are some ways you can reduce your recovery time and feel better faster.
Rest – Reduce strain on the affected tendon as much as possible, especially when intense pain occurs. If necessary, consult with your physician on how long you should rest and when it’s best to begin your return to normal activity.
This, however, doesn’t usually mean not moving completely. Instead, doctors often recommend walking soon after surgery to increase blood flow to the injury, prevent excessive inflammation, and avoid muscle atrophy.
Stay away from intense activity to reduce the chances of re-injury. Instead, slow progress and increase your movement as you heal.
Ice the Injury – Icing the affected tendon can keep inflammation in control and reduce pain. In addition, when the swelling goes down, it’s much easier to regain mobility. Ideally, you’ll ice the injury every thirty minutes or so. Also, ice after any exercise or strain during your recovery.
Find a Good Physical Therapist – Physical therapy is essential for people who want to fully and quickly recover. One of the most significant advantages of physical therapy sessions is that they build strong support muscles to facilitate normal mobility while the healing tendon is weak. Schedule an appointment with an experienced therapist and talk to them about how often you should see them.
Focus on Physical Fitness – Staying healthy and eating a proper diet favor better recovery. While healing, you should focus on the food you eat and how to lose any extra weight you carry. A healthy body weight can reduce unnecessary strain on your tendon, bones, and joints. Come out of your recovery a better, stronger person.
These are just a few things you can do to improve your tendon health after an injury. Of course, consult your doctor to ask whether anything you’re doing is in line with their treatment recommendations.
Peptides & Tendon Healing
Peptides are short chains of amino acids that trigger specific biological responses. For example, BPC 157 https://www.peptidesciences.com/bpc-157-5mg is a penta-decapeptide, a partial sequence of the body protection compound found in human gastric juice.
In animal studies, BPC 157 showed promising results regarding damaged ligaments and tendon healing. In addition, it improved the protection of organs and prevented ulcers. It effectively healed tendons in animal models by recruiting fibroblasts and promoting blood vessel growth.
The increased blood supply to injuries led to faster tendon growth and better overall healing. Rat tendons, for example, showed better fibroblast density, and BPC 157 showed better results than other hormone treatments.
