Why do I keep getting tendonitis?

[ironfist]

I have a few theories that I will share but I want to see what you have to say.

This started when I was about 30. I got tendonitis in both quads and had to do PT for a few months for it to go away.

Like a year later I got tendonitis in my shoulder (biceps insertion) and had to do 3/4 year of therapy (weighted eccentrics, ice massage) for it to heal. This is when I started to venture into collagen and that type of thing.

A few years later I get tendonitis in my hand.

A bit later I get it in my shoulder again.

A year or so later I get pez anserine tendonitis (basically hasn't gone away).

A year or so later I get it in one of my quads again.

And then in my hand.

And then in my shoulder.

Then in my foot.

Allow me to state that this is actual tendonitis, I know what it feels like and have been told it's this by PTs and doctors. I'm not one of those "oh my joint hurts I must have tendonitis" people. This is tendonitis, legitimate tendonitis that takes months to go away, not "oh my elbow hurt last weekend, haha I had tendonitis."

Some of them have been from overuse. Some of them have been from a use. Like I did one thing and got tendonitis.

My protein intake is reasonably high for my body weight.

I'd been using collagen for years as a preventative once this started.

I've made bone broth before.

I had a few thoughts regarding why this might be the case:

1) low copper??? I mention this because at least two of those tendonitises started FOLLOWING ZINC SUPPLEMENTATION. My copper results are usually pretty low but still in range. It's literally like, take a zinc pill or two, get tendonitis for a month or more. Taking copper supplements doesn't really change much. Ceruloplasmin is normal.

2) I don't think it's prescription related as to my knowledge I've never had a fluoroquinone.

3) Emotional ***t. Ok bear with me. I was reading about John Sarno. They say tendonitis is one of the things that emotional drama can cause. I am active on the TMS forum and am strongly opposed to the idea that emotional problems cause tendonitis. Let me state, I presume stress can cause heaps of things, and I align with this concept on multiple levels. HOWEVER, I do not think tendonitis is one of those things. Regardless...

I seem to notice that when I get tendonitis, I AM GOING THROUGH EMOTIONAL ***t AT THE TIME.

I have a history of mental abuse from a narcissist mother. I am in therapy. There is a lot of repressed rage, like they call it, from me.

With that in mind, I have a changed theory, that upon periods of emotional stress, the body is greater odds of developing new problems from what you are doing then. In other words, the stuff I did, like lifting something, while I was having drama, caused the tendonitis. If I had done something else instead, that would have been the injury. I think this concept is so key. It's what you're doing AT THE TIME, not the thing itself. It never fails, I'm doing a thing and I'm super on edge about something, just like, that lack of security that narcissists create, and I get injured.

Playing golf with a bpd girlfriend? SHOULDER TENDONITIS. time to recover 3 months.

Unlocking a lock while moving after a bad breakup with a(nother) bpd girlfriend? HAND TENDONITIS time to recover 3 months.

Just got back together with a (same as above) bpd girlfriend and having lots of sex in unique positions? QUAD TENDONITIS time to recover 3 months.

Anxious from needy drama (I'm the needy one) with the first mentioned gf and stood up from a peculiar squatting position? PEZ ANSERINE TENDONITIS time to recover 6+ years

Annoyed with things in general and lifting a 50 pound salt block for my dad? SHOULDER TENDONITIS. time to recover 2 months.

Annoyed with not being able to find a place to live and doing a hand stand? SHOULDER TENDONITIS time to recover 6+ years

In a relationship with said bpd girlfriend and trying something new at the gym? SHOULDER TENDONITIS. time to recover 3/4 year

Unhappy with my living situation while relocating a drawer in a chest? HAND TENDONITIS time to recover 3 months

Annoyed, nevertheless not sure about what, and doing an exercise for my knee tendonitis? HIP TENDONITIS time to recover 5+ years

Annoyed with different bothersome roommates? QUAD TENDONITIS. I literally remember when I stood up and said "oh ***t it's back." time to recover 3 months

Annoyed with those roommates another time? PLANTAR FASCIITIS time to recover 1 month

How annoying are my roommates? Imagine being so annoyed at home that you voluntarily stay at the office until 10pm at night because you don't want to be home.

I think intuitively I know my gfs were crazy (not playing the crazy gf card but they were crazy) even previous to realizing it for real. I was unhappy even when I thought I was happy. Furthermore, having a narc mom will make you likely to date borderlines. Moreover, I was basically apprehensive and stressed constantly about everything. I don't even know what relax means. Waiting for the constant ******* drama that is about to start out of nowhere. Out of ******* nowhere.

4) diet stuff. My diet used to be pretty bad. LOTS OF CALORIES -- bodybuilder -- but little vegetables. I stopped this at least 6 years ago, btw.

CRP normal
ESR normal
hs-CRP normal
auto immune positive (sometimes) BUT the later tests were all beneath the "positive" range
test was 1000 (range went to 800)
No alcochol
no tobacco
zinc normal
rbc magnesium normal
thiamine high normal
copper low normal
ceruloplasmin normal
lipids slightly high sometimes

I wondered if maybe I trained more than I should. From 18-30 I was pretty overtrained nonstop. I didn't know you should take breaks and was too afraid of losing size so I had to constantly eat eat eat train train train. But my problems didn't really start until after I had stopped training hard or at all.

It's possible I was undernourished for a while during a time I tried vegetarianism however, most of the time before this I was definitely not malnourished, as I was eating a lot to try and keep weight. I'm naturally thin, currently I'm 141 @ 8% bf, biggest was 170 @ 7% bf. In all likelihood it was lower, I had it tested digitally and was 6.3. This wasn't because I was wanting to stay ripped, it's because my body doesn't store fat. I was eating more in 2 hours than most people eat in a day. Body dysmorphia, too. I was concerned with not missing meals and getting sufficient food. This is very unhealthy, btw. But I was growing so I didn't care. It is very difficult for me to gain weight and when I start gaining, if I miss a meal I'll lose a month of gains in a day.

I thought that my body didn't have what it needed when I read an article on marksdailyapple about tendon so I obsessively supplemented collagen because I thought for whatever reason that would stop the tendonitis.

I tried all the things they tell you. Mag supplementation. B6. Stretching. Collagen. Muco polysaccharides. Wobenzym. Weighted eccentrics. Serrapeptase. Rest. More protein. Ice massage. More massage. Graston. Chiropractic. PT. Voodoo floss. Spiked ball. Differing success. I do believe voodoo floss prevented some nearly tendonitis in my achiles tendon a few times.

Is it all in my head?

Mention what else you want to know.

 

[xeliex]

Hi, I've been there.

I come from a heavy lifting background and I can tell you my tendon woes aren't really related to lifting.

It simply seems to correlate with my thyroid function whether I am lifting heavy or just sitting my butt.

 

[ecstatichamster]

what are you taking now for supplements?

I think the solution is when you begin feeling twinges, to start eccentric exercises for that joint.

I developed De Quervain's out of the blue a year ago and this fixed it. I have developed some achilles tendon issue on my left and I'm doing those eccentric calf exercises and it's 80% better.
.
How are your waking and daytime temps? The biggest reason for the tendon inflammation you describe is low temps.

Another reason can be fungus. I believe that is why borax works for some....Travis told me he thought so and showed me some studies on it

 

[methylenewhite]

Tendon has just a small amount of mitos comparing to other tissues. Having defective mitos could cause tendon issues. I suggest reading "manipulating mitochondrial dynamics" thread on longecity. I had very serious tendinitis after ciprofloxacin treatment. Took me long time to fix it. I used aspirin and cut off omega6. But still if I knock my mitos into fission by NAD+ precursors and overload them by exercise I get issues. A couple of weeks again I forgot that, having two tendon injuries right now as the rersult.

 

[Vileplume]

Hi, I've been there.

I come from a heavy lifting background and I can tell you my tendon woes aren't really related to lifting.

It simply seems to correlate with my thyroid function whether I am lifting heavy or just sitting my butt.

Have you noticed lifting impacting your metabolism?

 

[xeliex]

Have you noticed lifting impacting your metabolism?

Not in a major way. For me it has always been dietary habits, fasting, low carb, carb cycling, etc...
Weight lifting just made me look better. I did not feel stronger despite my heavy weight lifting capacity. In those extremely fit days my nervous system and muscle coordination weren't great - most likely due to all the anti-metabolic habits.

 

[Vileplume]

Not in a major way. For me it has always been dietary habits, fasting, low carb, carb cycling, etc...
Weight lifting just made me look better. I did not feel stronger despite my heavy weight lifting capacity. In those extremely fit days my nervous system and muscle coordination weren't great - most likely due to all the anti-metabolic habits.

Fasting and low carb tanked my metabolism much more than exercise as well. I did intense cardio for years and always had healthy libido. A few months of fasting and *poof* libido gone

 

[MarcelZD]

I have the same issue though mostly after exercise. For example bench presses have a high likelihood of giving me shoulder tendonitis. Collagen is great but didn't help in that regard.

I have been considering hyaluronic acid. Have you tried that?

 

[ironfist]

I read a study that hyaluronic acid helps cancer, so I have stayed away from it. I believed it was just a skin supplement, anyway.

 

[Zoltanman]

Hi there, I want to double check some things I've found over the years, with you. I 'took collagen obsessively' too, for a while and it didn't do enough at all.

Then I realised that there's a blood / collagen level spike about 45 mins to an hour after intake (then it drops to 'normal' levels) and that this is the only way collagen gets to the injury. So when I took my 3 tablespoons once a day, I was only getting one 'dose' hitting the area of injury with any strength. For about 15 minutes. That was all.

When I moved to 3-6 doses a day, magic happened. And yes, this took me over and above the 'recommended' dose on the label. Then I found that the recommended dose for things like collagen vary according to whatever your local version of the FDA says is ok/allows on the label... In Australia, where I am, that's the TGA, and they're just as incompetent and evil.

The 'recommended daily dose' they allow on the label might work for a toddler with a boo-boo but not for grown men who lift heavy regularly, let alone who want injury repair.

Using 8-10 tablespoons spread out over the day (yes it's a lot) I was able to heal mutiple bulged discs and decades long tendon injuries. If I now do anything that re bulges a disc, or inflames my tendons, I'm only ever out of action for 7-10 days, max. Often for shorter time.

My brother had a critical back injury that exploded 2 of his discs at age 17. At age 33 he started collagen as per above recommendations and literally re-grew his back discs over 2 months. He was ecstatic, as you'd imagine.

I've also taken patients off of joint surgery lists with the above protocol. 2 knee surgeries and 2 hip surgeries booked for June, started protocol in January... Only one knee surgery went ahead. It took 4 months of collagen dosing and bone broth ingestion to do this. She freely admits that if she'd stuck to my recommendations properly, rather than on and off, she'd have escaped the final knee surgery too.

I can elaborate on these 2 people's experiences for any interested parties.


Next thing to consider, you might have a bit of a cascade issue depleting one or more of the vital components of collagen, thereby rendering it less than complete when needed for injury repair.

Hypothetically: Let's say someone has

1) Lower than optimal levels of creatine creating an easier path to leaky gut.
2) We take collagen but immediately the glycine + proline is burned up by the liver inactivating and detoxing proteins and endotoxin that should ONLY be in the gut.
3) Even on 6 tablespoons daily we're not seeing any results and
4) We think we've found collagen ineffective.

Why? It's used for things other than the intended purpose, because it's shoring up some other issue as yet undiscovered. Once it gets to injury area, it's not complete enough to do what was intended.


It also sounds like you'd benefit from checking over your serotonin status, maybe playing with Georgi's 10 methoxy harmalan (or any of the 900+ other serotonin control strategies talked about on the forum) for lowering it. A lifetime of emotional abuse leads to super high serotonin (yes, personal experience for me again) and you start with whatever your mum had as your own zero baseline.

High stress mum during pregnancy = your serotonin 'volume level' is saying 1 out of 10... when actually it's a 6 or a 7/10.

Then the issues with a parent send you up to physically abnormal levels of serotonin for years but you'll learn to function at a 14 out of 10 (because the alternative is dying) and after a while this will feel normal. Trouble is, this can lead to a serotonin cascade that burns up the very things your joints need to heal. It also creates a superb environment for re-injury.

It's awesome that you've got a therapist, I hope they help lots!

I struggled for years until I found brainspotting. The usefulness of my previous therapy modalities felt good at the time, and I'd not have survived without them. But once I got onto a great brainspotting therapist it was like the old stuff was progress in a horse and cart, and now I was moving forward on a train, watching my old therapies rattle slowly along... ab-so-bloody-lute-ly brilliant stuff!!!!


I hope this helps, fell free to reply with any questions and I'll answer as I can. Thanks for reading this!!

 

[Jonk]

I would guess it's a two sided problem, 1. that you have some kind of inflammation, maybe in the intestine, and 2. This inflammation is causing you to compensate in your movement patterns, eventually leading to tendonitis. Not saying this is the case but I've dealt/are dealing with something that sounds similar.

 

[ironfist]

I would guess it's a two sided problem, 1. that you have some kind of inflammation, maybe in the intestine, and 2. This inflammation is causing you to compensate in your movement patterns, eventually leading to tendonitis. Not saying this is the case but I've dealt/are dealing with something that sounds similar.

Interesting.

I take and have taken a lot of anti-inflammatories. I seldom use NSAIDs.

My inflame markers are low. CRP, ESR, hs-CRP all negative.

I use pro-resolving mediators every day which are supposed to be like super powerful fish oil anti inflammatory. I've used serrapeptase, Wobenzym, bromelein, ginger, turmeric, etc and didn't really notice differences. Mostly they did nothing. Massaging with ice seems to help. And weighted eccentrics.

By what mechanism would inflammation cause me to change my movement patterns? Are you saying perhaps something hurts so I do things different?

 

[ironfist]

Hi there, I want to double check some things I've found over the years, with you. I 'took collagen obsessively' too, for a while and it didn't do enough at all.

Then I realised that there's a blood / collagen level spike about 45 mins to an hour after intake (then it drops to 'normal' levels) and that this is the only way collagen gets to the injury. So when I took my 3 tablespoons once a day, I was only getting one 'dose' hitting the area of injury with any strength. For about 15 minutes. That was all.

[/QUOTE]

Ok interesting. So here's some relevant details. I have an elbow injury that responded very well to collagen. I take collagen, it ceases hurting. I don't take collagen, it keeps hurting. Fun fact, this halted being the case when Great Lakes changed their formula. It looked different. Tasted different. Didn't mix well. And quit helping.

Anyway, I would get about 24 hours, maybe 48 hours, of relief from one dose. And then by the next day I could tell I had avoided it.

So it's interesting you say it lasts for about 45 minutes.

I would take it before I made food in the morning.

In your experience, does it have to be taken separate from food?

When I moved to 3-6 doses a day, magic happened. And yes, this took me over and above the 'recommended' dose on the label. Then I found that the recommended dose for things like collagen vary according to whatever your local version of the FDA says is ok/allows on the label... In Australia, where I am, that's the TGA, and they're just as incompetent and evil.

The 'recommended daily dose' they allow on the label might work for a toddler with a boo-boo but not for grown men who lift heavy regularly, let alone who want injury repair.

Using 8-10 tablespoons spread out over the day (yes it's a lot) I was able to heal mutiple bulged discs and decades long tendon injuries. If I now do anything that re bulges a disc, or inflames my tendons, I'm only ever out of action for 7-10 days, max. Often for shorter time.

[/QUOTE]

Will you tell me how much that is in grams? I know grams, not tablespoons. I would imagine 10 table spoons to be about 80g but I'm picturing.

My brother had a critical back injury that exploded 2 of his discs at age 17. At age 33 he started collagen as per above recommendations and literally re-grew his back discs over 2 months. He was ecstatic, as you'd imagine.

[/QUOTE]

Generally I like to play devil's advocate on things like this. They say discs generally repair themselves in 6-8 months anyway. Do you think he would have recovered without the product?

I've also taken patients off of joint surgery lists with the above protocol. 2 knee surgeries and 2 hip surgeries booked for June, started protocol in January... Only one knee surgery went ahead. It took 4 months of collagen dosing and bone broth ingestion to do this. She freely admits that if she'd stuck to my recommendations properly, rather than on and off, she'd have escaped the final knee surgery too.

[/QUOTE]

Interesting. Not questioning you, but I wonder if it was cognitive here. If you believe Sarno, most pain like that is emotional. If she believed it was going to work, maybe it worked (assuming there was no physically based pain in the first place).

I can elaborate on these 2 people's experiences for any interested parties.

[/QUOTE]

Yeah!

Next thing to consider, you might have a bit of a cascade issue depleting one or more of the vital components of collagen, thereby rendering it less than complete when needed for injury repair.

Hypothetically: Let's say someone has

1) Lower than optimal levels of creatine creating an easier path to leaky gut.
2) We take collagen but immediately the glycine + proline is burned up by the liver inactivating and detoxing proteins and endotoxin that should ONLY be in the gut.
3) Even on 6 tablespoons daily we're not seeing any results and
4) We think we've found collagen ineffective.

Why? It's used for things other than the intended purpose, because it's shoring up some other issue as yet undiscovered. Once it gets to injury area, it's not complete enough to do what was intended.


It also sounds like you'd benefit from checking over your serotonin status, maybe playing with Georgi's 10 methoxy harmalan (or any of the 900+ other serotonin control strategies talked about on the forum) for lowering it. A lifetime of emotional abuse leads to super high serotonin (yes, personal experience for me again) and you start with whatever your mum had as your own zero baseline.

High stress mum during pregnancy = your serotonin 'volume level' is saying 1 out of 10... when actually it's a 6 or a 7/10.

Then the issues with a parent send you up to physically abnormal levels of serotonin for years but you'll learn to function at a 14 out of 10 (because the alternative is dying) and after a while this will feel normal. Trouble is, this can lead to a serotonin cascade that burns up the very things your joints need to heal. It also creates a superb environment for re-injury.

It's awesome that you've got a therapist, I hope they help lots!

I struggled for years until I found brainspotting. The usefulness of my previous therapy modalities felt good at the time, and I'd not have survived without them. But once I got onto a great brainspotting therapist it was like the old stuff was progress in a horse and cart, and now I was moving forward on a train, watching my old therapies rattle slowly along... ab-so-bloody-lute-ly brilliant stuff!!!!


I hope this helps, fell free to reply with any questions and I'll answer as I can. Thanks for reading this!!

Might using a larger dose of collagen, like mentioned above, provide sufficient to fix the problems? Or are you still lacking components and those other things should be added first?

This is interesting. I am considering having bigger portions of collagen per day. Is there withdrawal when you stop? One day I was fasting and used like 6 servings of collagen throughout the day and felt great; but this could've been the fasting.

 

[FullLife]

Eliminate close exposure to wireless devices. Within my own family two people have experienced elimination of joint issues when wireless devices were removed.

 

[Jonk]

By what mechanism would inflammation cause me to change my movement patterns? Are you saying perhaps something hurts so I do things different?

Yeah I don't know though, might be an avenue to explore. I have a kind of migratory pain in my back/hip/thigh and it's closely related to my gut/digestion.

 

[ironfist]

Eliminate close exposure to wireless devices. Within my own family two people have experienced elimination of joint issues when wireless devices were removed.

I can turn 5g off on my phone. Does wifi pose a conundrum?

 

[FullLife]

I can turn 5g off on my phone. Does wifi pose a conundrum?

I hard wire at home - phone off at night/or at least 2 feet away during day. I wore a Oura ring to monitor sleep and got elbow tendonitis. Once I stopped wearing it elbow cleared up. My husband used a wireless mouse and the station was less than a foot from his keyboard. His knuckle became inflamed, he removed it and it cleared up. When it comes to EMF - distance is your friend when you cannot turn it off. I have seen it with a EMF meter.

 

[yerrag]

The one substance that I've long refrained from using is MSM. I take a lot of collagen by eating beef tendons. Me being and eating plenty of collagen didn't really seem to help me but I kept eating collagen because collagen collagen.

My nails didn't get stronger. Ditto a slight knee pain that I feel only when walking up stairs.

One time it was the left knee and that disappeared after taking berberine or the Chinese herb Huang Lian. But that had anti- enzyme action that destroys an enzyme produced by bacteria in plaque in blood veasels. So I can say problem solved.

But then it now shows up on my right knee. I still have this occasional pain and now I think sulfur supp is what I need to go with the collagen.

Why I think so is because I tried MSM for two weeks at 2 x 1 tsp daily. After I stopped and about 2 weeks, my balding pate got its hair back and no more pate is visible.

But I wasn't aiming to improve my hair. I was aiming to help my liver produce more albumin, as I urinate a lot of oxidized albumin. Given that albumin is a protein that contains plenty of cysteine, which contains sulfur bonds.

Anyway, back to your tendons. Tendons not only have collagen, but collagen also contains plenty of sulfur bonds.

Maybe for some reason you are low in sulfur for one reason or another that I have no inkling on. As I lose a lot of sulfur from my heavy excretion of urinary albumin, you may have a condition that causes you to lose a lot of sulfur. Or perhaps your intake of sulfur is low.

As I'm resuming MSM intake and I just began, I hope my right knee pain may disappear after some time.

This suggestion is fairly anti-Peaty as Peat has gone on record to scare people off MSM in an interview, sharing a story of a woman who exploded. This woman happened to be taking MSM.

 

[yerrag]

I believe people who believe that the gelatin powder they use helps them are crossing their fingers hoping the gelatin isn't contaminated with glyphosate, and instead of benefiting from the glycine in gelatin, they may instead become harmed by the glyphosate that mimics the glycine and replaces the glycine in gelatin. Some may say it's just a theory, but then disgregarding this theory and outright chucking it away because it's not a law isn't a good idea. Given that it is an argument of scientism that everything has to be proven beyond any reasonable doubt in order to be accepted. Hence, you have all that money spent in research by bad Talmud-crazy people pretending to be scientists, and the downstream result is you have so-called experts in medicine telling people with cancer "we don't know the answer and we're still doing research."

Here is an interview of Stephanie Seneff by Patrick Timpone:

(Transcript) Dr. Stephanie Seneff: The Latest Research on the Effects of Glyphosate aka Roundup on the Human Body - June 23, 2016 | One Radio Network

23/16 Interview with Dr. Stephanie Seneff stephanie seneff, phd, glyphosates trojan horse proteins, her latest research, june 23, 2016 Patrick: Dr. Seneff was telling me about some new and very…

oneradionetwork.com

I don't have to recap as you can read the transcript.

 

[SamYo123]

Record your gaitcycle in slow motion to see the dysfunctions then address the biomechanical system