“What are the symptoms of tendonitis in the ankle?”

Tendonitis means tendon inflammation. Symptoms would be pain along the path of the tendon, tenderness over the tendon, pain with whatever function that particular muscle/tendon is responsible for and possibly visible swelling over the path of the tendon. Swelling is always there with tendonitis but it may or may not be visible to the naked eye.

There will be pain and swelling along a specific tendon or muscle.

The common tendonitis is of the achilles tendon, or heel cord. The common variant is non-insertional, where the tendon is swollen about 4-5cm above the insertion on the calcaneus, the heel bone. Early on, it isn't swollen, only painful. Typically it becomes disabling, preventing running. The treatment is usually a combination of a blood injection - ABI - using the patient's own blood. A physiotherapy program of eccentric training also help, but the blood injection my opinion is the key.

Another variant of achilles tendonitis is insertional, where the pain is right where it connects to bone. The treatment for this can be initially physiotherapy, but if more aggressive treatment is required, it is usually surgery to remove a "bump" of bone, and if necessary repair the tendon to bone. Other tendonitis conditions occur of the perineal tendons, on the outer aspect of the ankle, or the tibialis posterior, on the inner aspect of the ankle. These are interesting, but rare.

Cheers,

Mr. David Mitchell

Tendinitis in the ankle usually has pain over tendon with movement. Tenderness to touch (palpating). Sometimes noise (crepitous), swelling, redness (erythema) depending on severity, location, cause. Treatment is to try to figure out the cause and stop or alter activity, ice, anti inflammatory for short time and sometimes splinting. Hope this helps. Happy New Year !