I had a PRP injection for golfers elbow. It’s the tendon on the inside or the arm. Tennis elbow is the outside of the arm. I was able to keep the mass at the injection site for 5 days. Then it moved down my arm. It did help as my arm was not getting any better before the shot.
Hi Ainie, I’m sorry you are struggling. PHT really can be debilitating and recovery can take forever.
I don’t have any personal experience with injections, but I looked through the literature quite extensively. There is no study that convincingly shows PRP injections speed up the healing process of PHT (or any other tendon issue). There are some case studies and personal accounts of success, but those are really hard to evaluate. Some, of course, also report that PRP made things worse for them.
Personally, I’d stay clear of any injections – even though we are all clamoring for a quick(er) fix. Based on your description (2 steps forward and 4 steps back) I suspect that you are doing too much, too hard, too quickly. I wrote up my approach here (Proximal Hamstring Tendinopathy (rehab) - #6 by MarioN) and it worked. After about a year of PT I was back at competitions and I just recently finished 3rd in a Olympic Tri and have a 70.3 lined up for next week. Long hard and frustrating road… but there is light at the end of the tunnel.
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Thanks for all the input. Learning a great deal about what I’m doing right and wrong. No mention here of static stretching, although several studies show it was the most successful group when combined with progressive loading as mentioned here. Static stretching seems to irritate the hamstring for me, thinking maybe it’s not the best? Or do I keep at it and work through it? Pain is at most a 3, and dies down in 24 hours, I don’t get it when doing iso or eccentric exercises, thoughts?
I’m in a PT treatment program for a similar issue currently and finally seeing some improvement just after the 3 month point. I agree the stretching has always seemed to cause more irritation than benefit for me so do it minimally and only after a good warmup, and very gentle. I’ve focused on the exercises and sticking to the plan, which finally seems to be paying off although there are a couple of exercises I’ve tried and then had to abandon as they caused a lot of discomfort, specifically a simplified single leg deadlift, even with a slightly bent knee. I believe my PT will have me return to them after more progress has been made with the other dynamic exercises. Best wishes on your rehab.
I have had this problem a couple of times and I think it was mostly as a result of ramping up deadlifts and squats a little too aggressively potentially compounded by a saddle that was just a bit high. Each time it has happened it occurs in my right glute. This last bout has been going on for about three months. Initially it was the proverbial pain in the butt when cycling but also when I woke up first thing in the morning, it would get super aggravated if I trained in the morning and would slowly improve through the course of the day. Sitting in the morning would definitely make it angry.
Thankfully it is almost gone. What’s worked for me is being super diligent on not aggravating it outside of being on the bike and with physio which is pretty much doing a bridge pose on the floor and with a band around my news. Then for 1.5 to 2mins at a time I get into bridge and then open my legs against the band for 10 to 20s at a time. I have at times also done clam shells. The benefit is that this puts the hamstring under load without it being pinched over the sit bones and it also strengthens the piriformis which could also be causing the pain in the butt.
It’s been super slow but then I think that’s pretty routine for tendinopathy.
Good luck. Hope you find relief or at least see progress.
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Static stretching was a big NO for me, as I felt like it irritated it even more. As I progressed through rehab, I found that anytime a particular muscle (or area) felt tight (like it needed stretching), it was usually because it was weak. As I progressively increased the strength of my glutes/hamstrings, I felt less and less like I needed to stretch those muscle areas
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Ahh thanks, I’ve stopped the stretching last week, between the single leg bridges and shockwave therapy at the local chiro, I am 50% better after 3 weeks, still a long way to go, but after 4+ months of treating it incorrectly and failing miserably, I am very hopeful. I even jogged a mile today, it was almost pain free.
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