Patella Tendonitis (Tendinopathy)

Has anyone on the forums every experienced patellar tendinopathy? I am in the unfortunate position of having this and have gone from running 40 to 55 km a week to 7 km week before last and only 4 last week. I do know to run very slowly (which I did not do on Saturday - very foolish I know) and very little and do the exercises etc. and am also aware that it can take long to recover. But if anyone has some helpful insight, wisdom or tips that would be great.

I've got entries to both Otter and UTCT 65 km again and training was going extremely well compared to last year and now this seems to be so debilitating I'm thinking I may have to withdraw. Walking the dogs hurts.

Have anyone ever tried aqua jogging in a pool? I may do some research on this later. 

I know your pain - been there and done that.
Go get yourself some heel wedges from Sportsmands warehouse - you will be surprised at the results.

I've trying aqua jogging, didn't really work for me, but I tried without a float and ultimately put my back out - but I know a few people that have done it with the proper gear and they liked it...not going to get your fit but will help maintain whilst injury heals. www.fizique.co.za/aqua-trainer-belt/ ... this is probably the cheapest jogging belt you'll find in SA and look legit.

You also get shallow water aqua jogging where you go waist deep (need to find a big enough waist deep pool) and kinda run/walk. I think this works best for the likes of field sport (soccer, rugby, etc) where you need lots of little sprints, don't think it is working the right muscles for distance...or at least working the muscle right.

What I've done that works for me is get an elliptical trainer. Mine was/is (and will probably always be) for sprained ankles and ankle tendinitis. It helps by just taken the impact out of your running stride but still keeping a fairly natural feel. I just asked on Facebook if anyone had one lying around that they weren't using that I could test out and got given one for free that same day.

Thanks so much for the reply but I'm afraid I disagree, but having said that I am also not a doctor, nor physio  I am running mostly in zero drop shoes as of this year but am aware of what has caused my condition. Tight hamstrings (although I can wrap my fingers over my toes easily and without warmup), tight quads and glutes (although I can put both my feet around my head), no warm up before running pretty quickly (yes, I was very foolish to think I'd get away with that forever), walking dogs that pull very hard on the lead, working on a heavy duty compound feed sewing machine which tired the glute on the right hand side and thus brought instability to my right knee (which is the issue) late in the afternoon in my runs and probably also a muscle imbalance. Broken man it seems.

Here is an interesting article in which it is again mentioned that having a raised heel puts more pressure on the tendon. Luckily 18 years of windsurfing has meant that my feet and calves and achilles have had zero problems in changing over:
runnerclick.com/patellar-tendonitis-jumpers-knee/

I withdrew from running UTCT 65 km this morning. I still have 4 weeks to decide about Otter and whilst I am slightly hopeful, I also have no intention of wrecking myself. Let's see how the recovery goes. I will give an update at some stage. Thanks again for taking the time to reply. 

I don't know what you wear on your feet but I had a lot of injuries over a 2 year period until I switched to my current shoes. I was running in Asics, then switched to Newton Gravities which are zero drop neutral shoes. This helped a lot but I still had issues with my stabilizers. I then switched to Altra Superior shoes that are zero drop with a wide toe box. This had an amazing effect, as my toes could spread out more and my stabilizer and other associated injuries just eveporated within 3 to 4 weeks of using them. 

Never looked back since..

Lekker! Very glad to hear it worked out well for you!

I am running in Altra Lone Peak 3.5's and Altra Torin 3.0 for the road. But I didn't want to mention the brand because peoples brains turn off when you start mentioning shoes and it obscures their opinion, in my opinion. The best shoe is the one that works for you  

I have withdrawn from UTCT 65 km and still unsure of Otter. I'm taking it really easy and building slowly. When I have a better story to tell I will, but now I am still under 20 km a week, I think. Not pushing it. Am hitting Austria next week so I'll have to go on a few hikes and see how that feels.

(EDIT: I get no more e-mails from VE anymore despite being subscribed. Mods?)