Patellar tendinitis

[Anonymous]

Looks like my DD may have this in one of her knees (made the varsity soccer team and has been training hard/most days for the past six weeks). Pain when she plays (hard) in a game; relatively okay if not training hard/lots of running at practice. Goes away after the game for the most part (but twinges on stairs sometimes).
Will see a doctor soon, but in the meantime would like to hear others' experience with this. Is better practice to stop playing until pain free? Play through the pain? Worried about this becoming a chronic condition. TIA!

[Anonymous]

My son had it for most of his U15 season. He was fine doing drills in practice, but any kind of full speed scrimmage/game would cause the pain to be unbearable after about 10 minutes. Ice and antinflammatories didn't help much. Time off was the only thing that did. He took an extended winter off season which helped tremendously. It gradually got better and he could play about a half in the games towards the end of club season. HS soccer started and he was playing full games by April at about 75-80% fitness. By U16 club he was 100% again. You will see instantly when they are better because that speed burst will come back. It can be a long road, but hang in there. Your child will get through it.

[Anonymous]

DS is similar. Had to take off second half of fall, miss all winter completely, and then played most of spring but had to skip a few practices to rest.

Sounds like both PP and DS had to take a similar amount of time off.

[Anonymous]

I think they usually start with 6-8 weeks or 8-10 weeks of rest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looks like my DD may have this in one of her knees (made the varsity soccer team and has been training hard/most days for the past six weeks). Pain when she plays (hard) in a game; relatively okay if not training hard/lots of running at practice. Goes away after the game for the most part (but twinges on stairs sometimes).
Will see a doctor soon, but in the meantime would like to hear others' experience with this. Is better practice to stop playing until pain free? Play through the pain? Worried about this becoming a chronic condition. TIA!

This level of intense training is tough on kids. A quarter of DD's team is out with injuries.

[Anonymous]

Senior year is late for this for a girl. Are you sure this is what it is?

Shindig-Larsen-Johansson syndrome and Osgoods happen during growth spurts.

But, yes, over-training with high school + club is brutal. My son missed his entire Junior year with a hip/groin thing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Senior year is late for this for a girl. Are you sure this is what it is?

Shindig-Larsen-Johansson syndrome and Osgoods happen during growth spurts.

But, yes, over-training with high school + club is brutal. My son missed his entire Junior year with a hip/groin thing

^ Sindig

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Senior year is late for this for a girl. Are you sure this is what it is?

Shindig-Larsen-Johansson syndrome and Osgoods happen during growth spurts.

But, yes, over-training with high school + club is brutal. My son missed his entire Junior year with a hip/groin thing

She is a freshman (14) - but starts/plays the whole game. Or at least was until the patellar tendinitis!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Senior year is late for this for a girl. Are you sure this is what it is?

Shindig-Larsen-Johansson syndrome and Osgoods happen during growth spurts.

But, yes, over-training with high school + club is brutal. My son missed his entire Junior year with a hip/groin thing

She is a freshman (14) - but starts/plays the whole game. Or at least was until the patellar tendinitis!

My son had that at same age- at time of growth spurt. We were told the muscle/tendon growth has to catch up to the bone growth. It was off and on for 4-5 months. One knee then the other. The. It went away and hasn’t come back.

But at 16.5, the groin/hip injury (also growth related) started. That took a full year with almost no play- 3 MRIs and a cortisone shot.

All great now. But he was a late grower and the spurt was quick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looks like my DD may have this in one of her knees (made the varsity soccer team and has been training hard/most days for the past six weeks). Pain when she plays (hard) in a game; relatively okay if not training hard/lots of running at practice. Goes away after the game for the most part (but twinges on stairs sometimes).
Will see a doctor soon, but in the meantime would like to hear others' experience with this. Is better practice to stop playing until pain free? Play through the pain? Worried about this becoming a chronic condition. TIA!

Yes. You will lengthen the recovery period. Don't do intense activities that cause pain.

[Anonymous]

There is unfortunately an abundance of ignorance in the youth soccer world in the area of Sports Performance Science for especially Injury Prevention.

That is especially true for coaches, the majority who are unknowingly causing damage by running fitness drills they've seen others do, without knowledge, that's harming more than helping.