A Different Look at Tendonitis and Bursitis

Tendinitis and Bursitis

As we start a New Year there are often New Year’s resolutions we make involving exercise and healthy activity. Unfortunately, in following those resolutions too enthusiastically we may be trying to build our exercise and activity level too quickly, as if we were trying to go 60 miles per hour immediately from a dead stop.

The result is often mild to severe joint and muscle pain. While some soreness is a natural product of exercise, when we have extended pain that doesn’t respond quickly and easily we will pay a call on our physician for help. The physician may say that we have a case of Tendonitis or Bursitis, depending on whether the area affected is between a muscle and a joint or directly at a joint. The most common recommendation will be rest, ice and anti-inflammatory medication, together with the thought that “it should clear right up”. We dutifully begin our rest and ice applications, pick up and begin to take our meds and wait for the pain to decrease.

The story can be picked up a few days later, with no change in our pain level, except for increased stomach upset from the medication. We ask our physician what else to do and are told there is nothing else to be done, either “ it will improve” or “ it is just a part of growing older”. This is not what we wanted to hear, or keep feeling. Where is our healing capacity? Where is our resilience? Are we becoming decrepit?

Of course we are not falling apart even though we have begun to think so. It may be that we have been given a series of what can be called “arms-length” diagnoses. “Arms-length” meaning the physician is keeping us at a safe distance when they have no concrete answer to our problem. This isn’t to criticize the doctor; rather it is just an example of a profession-wide gap in training on musculo-skeletal and soft tissue issues. Physicians don’t have tools in their toolkits to address these issues, so they may resort to the arms-length suggestions to pacify their patients.

If we use a system like Bowenwork that was designed to address musculo-skeletal injuries and soft-tissue problems, we immediately have more tools in our toolkit and can provide solutions that are fast safe and effective. What may seem to be tendonitis may be a muscle imbalance on either side of a joint or an over-contracting muscle, in either case Bowenwork can help. What looks like bursitis may be a misalignment of the joint surfaces, which Bowenwork can help, and without any joint manipulation, or “cracking”. If it is truly tendonitis or bursitis, there are specific protocols for each issue in Bowenwork’s toolkit.

So if we are looking to start correctly and to keep going with our exercise resolutions, Bowenwork can be central in insuring that. Bowenwork can also be great as a tune-up to keep us humming along well after we have achieved our exercise and fitness goals.