Medically Reviewed by W. Nathaniel Gasque, MD

McLeod Health Sports Medicine Physician Dr. Nathan Gasque explains the difference between soft tissue injuries, muscle tears, and the inflammation that often accompanies tendonitis. 

“With sprains, we are specifically talking about an acute injury to your ligament. When we’re discussing a strain, that is an acute injury usually to a muscle, and that can be graded from just a simple stretch, or micro tears, to a grade two, where we have partial tear. We also have a grade three, where we have a complete rupture through a muscle.

The definition of tendonitis is when we have injury or pain around a tendon, and that is the attachment from the muscle to a bone. Generally, this is associated with overuse injuries.

Usually you’re going to start with feeling a little bit of pain in a certain area, generally right around the area of the tendon, and this will gradually increase as it gets more severe. Also, you may have some associated weakness or decrease in performance.

More often than not, tendonitis is going to be diagnosed clinically through a good medical history and physical exam. We may ask you to perform different maneuvers in the room, such as getting range of motion and testing your strength.

X-rays are not typically going to let us see the tendons, but we can rule out bone injuries. In special circumstances, you can see some swelling of the soft tissue. When we do an MRI, that is going to provide us with the most information about the injury.

As for treatment options for tendonitis, you first want to rest the area. This may be just simply avoiding the aggravating activity. In more severe cases, we may immobilize you in a brace or a boot just to get pressure off of it for awhile.

You want to start working on some general range of motion exercises as well as some therapy. The whole idea is to get the tendon to come back stronger, as well as regain some strength in the muscle. You will regain that strength through physical therapy.”

For more information, speak with an orthopedic provider near you.