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I had the honor of sitting down with Dr. Jill Cook and busting some common tendinopathy myths. This episode with Dr. Jill Cook was recorded live in front of an audience at the Combined Section Meeting in Anaheim, CA about 2 weeks ago. It was a great experience and one of the highlights of my CSM experience.
A little more about Dr. Cook: She is a professor in musculoskeletal health in the La Trobe Sport and Exercise Medicine Research Centre at La Trobe University in Melbourne Australia. Jill’s research areas include sports medicine and tendon injury. After completing her PhD in 2000, she has investigated tendon pathology, treatment options and risk factors for tendon injury. Jill currently supplements her research by conducting a specialist tendon practice and by lecturing and presenting workshops both in Australia and overseas.
In this episode we talk about:
* Are eccentric exercises are the best and only way to treat a tendinopathy?
* Can use the same tendon therapy protocol for every tendon and every person.
* A tendinopathy always involves inflammation.
* Once you are pain free and back to sport you don’t have to worry about the exercises you did in PT.
* Why we shouldn’t be selling messages we can’t deliver.
* and much more!
Dr. Cook shares so much information about tendinopathy in this episode that I think I learned more in 25 min that I have in the past 10 years!
Thank you again to the Private Practice Section of the APTA for all of their help to make this happen and thank you to Jimmy McKay, host of the PT Pintcast for the great intro!
More information on Dr. Cook
Twitter: @ProfJillCook
Enjoy the podcast and stay Healthy Wealthy & Smart!
xo
Karen
Sadly I am far from convinced by a few of Jill Cook’s responses.
Just because rest and anti-inflammatory medication don’t cure all tendon pain doesn’t mean that inflammation isn’t an important factor in driving tendon pain.
There is increasing evidence to support inflammation as a key factor in tendon pain. Pain is complex and has many drivers, one factor will never full explain what is inherently an incredibly subjective central perception.
Jill Cook talks of the importance of the cellular response, this is true, but which cells and which responses? The cells in and around tendons are mixed in population, while the role of inflammatory cells and inflammatory cytokines appears key in this process.
We should all remain sceptical of anyone who claims a particular treatment always works, and that if a treatment hasn’t worked, the treatment wasn’t done properly. In reality pain is rarely cured, many patients have to endure chronic symptoms to some degree, and the easy simple answers are often wrong.