After having problems with my shoulder/arm for many months I finally went to see a physio who said I had 'bicep tendonitis', and that given how it felt (tendon is badly swollen) and how long I've had it for, it must be quite bad. Treatment plan is physio for a couple of weeks, and if that fails (and it's quite possible it will, says the physio) then a steroid injection. I was just wondering if anyone else has had this (or similar steroid injections to other tendons), and what your experience was (heal rate, when can play again, did it fully recover, did pain ever come back etc.). Thanks!
i wasnt checked out but i had quite a sore bicep to the point where i couldnt play...and seemed like the tendon area just at the base of the bicep. I took 1 week off and after playing last night my arm seems fine?? Maybe mine was just a minor muscle pulling or something. Not too sure how long it would take with steroid injections, but id say a good 2-3 weeks off badminton should be enough. Check with your physio though.
I was just wondering if anyone else has had this (or similar steroid injections to other tendons), and what your experience was (heal rate, when can play again, did it fully recover, did pain ever come back etc.). Thanks! 1) is your racket head heavy? or it might just be too heavy?---> use lighter racket for 2 weeks - 1 months & in the mean time, Train those muscle & tendon: Don't need steroid injections----use massage ball that have some points on them and keep rubbing the area over and over, then get a chop stick, keep hitting the sore area over and over for a weeks with light strength then increase it, till you numb the nerve in that area of the arm--use some cold ICE to help decrease your nerve sensitivity. I did this in 3 months, now my arm is hard as a ROCK & w/ no more PAIN---or bicep tendonitis--or whatever you call it.....just PAIN in plain English......it will go away. You need to train your nerve to get use to it or wack that nerve till it become Nerve of steel........This is the Shaolin method of training........apply it....it do wonder.
I had a similar, but different condition: supraspinatus tendonitis. It's the next tendon up from the biceps tendon and runs along the crown of the shoulder. My cure required surgery, but that's very rarely needed for biceps tendonitis. I think though that a couple of weeks of physio is unlikely to help - if the tendon is inflamed the only cure is rest, probably in combination with a steroid injection. By all means try the physio (you probably have my now), it won't do any harm, but I would guess that a steroid injection will be needed. The cortisone will take 10 days or so to reduce the inflammation - it's very important that you rest the shoulder during this period to allow the inflammation to die down. So the steroid injection in combination with 2-3 weeks rest should see you right.
Just to finish the story of this thread: Confirmed by x-ray and MRI scan it was found that my arm & shoulder bones are fractionally too close together, and so when I lift my arm over my head (done a lot in badminton) it can slightly compress the biceps tendon, which then swells, so next time the slightly swollen tendon gets compressed more (because it's swollen), which causes more swelling etc. so it gets ever worse. Apparently this is a fairly common thing, but as the compression is minimal it often won't lead to swelling in the first place (indeed it didn't for me for many years), so whilst people have this it is never an issue (as the ever increasing swelling process never starts). I had an anti-inflammatory (reduces swelling) injection, which brings the tendon size back to normal. The hope is that it won't come back. I'll start playing soon and see what happens. If it comes back the shoulder specialist I was seeing said we'd deal with it as it comes. In the worse case an operation which shaves off a bit of bone, giving the tendon more space, can be done, but most people never have to do this and there are other usually preferred solutions.
Btw, how much does this type of treatments cost?? I mean phsio & injection that you already got. Hope you heal up good & able to get down to the court soon.
In the UK it could be done on the NHS (free National Health Service) but that would have taken a very long time, as waiting times are often weeks for something like a MRI for something like my case. So I did it privately (which means expensive! but medical insurance pays!), prices were (in GBP): £45 per 45min physio session, £90 for the x-ray, £680 for the MRI. The consultation / injection with the shoulder specialist I'm not sure as the bill hasn't come through, but probably £150-200 for the first session, and then maybe £100-175 for each follow up (first follow up got x-ray results, injection and referral for MRI, second to get MRI results), then injection will probs be a bit more too, though I don't really know. And I've got one final appointment in about 4 weeks so specialist can see how it is after I've played a bit. So ye kinda ridiculously expensive, but that's what insurance is for I guess! I'll post in the future if there's more news (completed threads are always more useful for future people!), but if no more posts assume that (hopefully!) I'm healed!
It only actually kills your nerve which is not really suitable or advisble because when you start to age, the main problem starts to surface again. It is more common known as, old injuries.
Jon, I hope I'm wrong but I'd be surprised if it didn't come back. The injection will take the inflammation down (assuming the injection was cortisone and provided you rested the arm for a couple of weeks post-injection to allow it to work). But the inflammation was caused by the tendon (almost certainly supraspinatus tendon, not biceps) getting trapped between the upper arm bone and the acromion - part of the shoulderblade - with repeated overhead movements. Sincle nothing has been done to give the tendon more space, other than to reduce the infalammation, it's very likely it will flare up again when you play regularly. You may well need an operation called a "subacromial decomression", which shaves some bone from the bottom surface of the acromion to make more room for said tendon. As you have private health insurance it shouldn't be a problem and it's a pretty trivial op - I was playing again gently in 8 days and flat-out inside a month.
