Wondering if there are many others who have been through this particular form of knee hell and come out the other side with functioning patellar tendons 
For me - I've had issues with my knees for years. It stopped me skiing because I had such a horrible burning pain below my kneecaps a couple of turns into a run. I'd stop, the burning pain would fade away, I'd do a couple more turns, it would come back, etc etc etc. Probably initially some tracking issues, I never found physios to be useful though as most of the exercises they had me to aggravated the area below my kneecap. Was told to not do things that made my knees hurt but that left me with nothing much. I went through bouts of ignoring the pain and respecting the pain, and nothing much seemed to make a difference. Early this year I finally got a concrete diagnosis of bilateral mild patellar tendinopathy via ultrasound scan.
With this diagnosis in mind, my current physio has had me doing a number of exercises which aim to very gently overload the patellar tendon to encourage it to remodel itself properly. I'm now allowed to feel pain during my exercises as long as the pain stays mild. I wasn't able to make much progress in the months before ski season (New Zealand) rolled around again though. I've sunk a lot of money into lessons already this year to try to improve my skiing and take unnecessary strain off my knees - which is great, they've definitely helped! - but I can still only do a limited number of runs per day before I start to hit the too-much-pain level. I'd love to feel the burning quads that others talk about at the bottom of an epic ski run. My knee tendons force me to stop and take breaks before my quads have a chance to get fatigued, sadly.
It's just frustrating. Looking for commiseration and hoping others have had similar experiences but are further down the recovery track. I need hope!
ETA: i do have a referral to a sports physician for a second opinion on these pesky knees. That will be happening in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully it's useful?
For me - I've had issues with my knees for years. It stopped me skiing because I had such a horrible burning pain below my kneecaps a couple of turns into a run. I'd stop, the burning pain would fade away, I'd do a couple more turns, it would come back, etc etc etc. Probably initially some tracking issues, I never found physios to be useful though as most of the exercises they had me to aggravated the area below my kneecap. Was told to not do things that made my knees hurt but that left me with nothing much. I went through bouts of ignoring the pain and respecting the pain, and nothing much seemed to make a difference. Early this year I finally got a concrete diagnosis of bilateral mild patellar tendinopathy via ultrasound scan.
With this diagnosis in mind, my current physio has had me doing a number of exercises which aim to very gently overload the patellar tendon to encourage it to remodel itself properly. I'm now allowed to feel pain during my exercises as long as the pain stays mild. I wasn't able to make much progress in the months before ski season (New Zealand) rolled around again though. I've sunk a lot of money into lessons already this year to try to improve my skiing and take unnecessary strain off my knees - which is great, they've definitely helped! - but I can still only do a limited number of runs per day before I start to hit the too-much-pain level. I'd love to feel the burning quads that others talk about at the bottom of an epic ski run. My knee tendons force me to stop and take breaks before my quads have a chance to get fatigued, sadly.
It's just frustrating. Looking for commiseration and hoping others have had similar experiences but are further down the recovery track. I need hope!
ETA: i do have a referral to a sports physician for a second opinion on these pesky knees. That will be happening in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully it's useful?
