Treatments and drugs
By Mayo Clinic staffThe goals of tendinitis treatment are to relieve your pain and reduce inflammation. Often, taking care of tendinitis on your own — including rest, ice and over-the-counter pain relievers — may be all the treatment that you need.
Medications
For tendinitis, your doctor may recommend these medications:
- Corticosteroids. Sometimes your doctor may inject a corticosteroid medication around a tendon to relieve tendinitis. Injections of cortisone reduce inflammation and can help ease pain. However, repeated injections may weaken a tendon, increasing your risk of rupturing the tendon.
- Pain relievers. Taking aspirin, naproxen (Aleve) or ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin, others) may relieve discomfort associated with tendinitis. Topical creams with anti-inflammatory medication — popular in Europe and becoming increasingly available in the United States — may also be effective in relieving pain without the potential side effects of taking anti-inflammatory medications by mouth.
Therapy
You might benefit from a program of specific exercise designed to stretch and strengthen the affected muscle-tendon unit. For instance, eccentric strengthening — which emphasizes contraction of a muscle while it's lengthening — has been shown to be effective in treating chronic tendon inflammation.
Surgery
Depending on the severity of your tendon injury, surgical repair may be needed.
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- Laskowski ER (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. Sept. 28, 2011.


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