Tendinopathy – Yes; Tendinitis – No

Tendinitis is often used incorrectly as a generic term for overuse tendon injuries. The term that should be used is tendinopathy. Tendinitis and tendinosis both refer to microscopic changes that are seen on biopsy. Even spelled as “tendonitis”, it is still incorrect. The current view is that long term overuse tendon injuries display little to no inflammation. While the original meaning of the word inflamation refers to something feeling like it is “on fire”, the medical term refers to histopathology and microscopic examination. While it may still hurt and in a sense feel as bad as if it were on fire, we need to start calling the injury tendinopathy. Of course the biggest problem is that when a doctor tells you that your problem is “tendinopathy” it will take a 20 minutes of discussion to define what is meant by that.

The running injuries website has been updated to include an overview on the science of tendinopathy. We’ll update this page as new information and research appears.