New Therapy Tends to the Pain of the Strain of Tendonitis
If you’ve ever strained yourself after heavy lifting, intensive sports, or a sudden accident, you may have injured your tendon and experienced tendonitis. Most tendon injuries occur near the joints, especially the wrist, knee, shoulder, and elbow. This leads to inflammation of the tendon, which is a condition called tendonitis. These injuries are surprisingly common, with 30% to 50% due to sports. Most people recover after a brief rest and a break from activity, but many people hurt their tendon so badly that it becomes permanently weakened. With Florida’s many sports-oriented and active residents, MD Now offers many treatments and services to help heal tendon injuries. Luckily, complete relief from this grief may finally be close at hand, as scientists are studying a new therapy for the treatment of tendon injuries. Learn more about this remedy that could help numerous people in pain.
Tendencies of Tendon Injuries
To understand tendonitis, you must first understand tendons. These are strong bands of connective tissue that join the muscles to the bones. Healthy tendons are mostly made up of a very sturdy substance called type-1 collagen. If you suffer a tendon injury, your body repairs the tendon by producing a type-3 collagen, which is much weaker and more prone to injury. This weaker type-3 collagen is usually replaced by the stronger type-1 collagen over time. Yet some people repeatedly injure their tendon before the stronger collagen has had a chance to replenish. This leads to an imbalance between the type-1 and type-3 collagens, which leaves sufferers with inherently weaker tendons, diminished mobility, and long-term pain.
Hope for Help is Here
Recently, scientists at the University of Glasgow started testing a new therapy for the treatment of tendon injuries. Their trials involve injecting small, biological molecules that help regulate gene expression directly into the injured tendon. This is meant to reduce the production of the weaker type-3 collagen and convert it to the stronger type-1 collagen. Early trials have proven successful, so now researchers plan to work with international experts to test the treatment further.
Intended for Treatment of Tendon Injuries
If these final trials are safe and successful, then the researchers plan to offer the remedy to the public for the treatment of tendon injuries in both people and in animals. Doctors and sufferers are hopeful that this discovery could move them toward faster relief and recoveries.
“This breakthrough has allowed us to find a way to alter the levels of collagen type-3 in tendons,” explained Neal Millar, an academic consultant orthopedic surgeon and clinical senior research fellow at the University of Glasgow. “With the ultimate aim to get patients with tendon injuries better quicker.”