03/04/2026
"Yes, you heard that right: tendon rupture as the side effect of a medication."
Tendon failure as … a drug side effect?
In early 2024, I partially ruptured my triceps tendon while doing something EXTREMELY athletic: standing up from my office chair. 🙄 Sheesh.
Reckless, I know. Ironically, I was standing up to do one of my many daily “movement snacks” — an injury prevention strategy!
Guess I should have stayed put.
I’m hardly alone. I’ve heard many stories of tendons that ruptured with little provocation: Stepped off a curb. Reached into the back seat. Caught a falling coffee mug. Sneezed hard.
Partial ruptures like mine are probably even more common, but often undiagnosed. It was less dramatic than a full rupture, of course, but I could feel it tearing, an awful sensation: a wet, shuddering GIVING WAY. It felt just like the last time I definitively tore some connective tissue (coracoclavicular ligament rupture, a sports accident in the mid 2000s). A memorable sensation.
I didn’t curse. I just groaned and rolled my eyes and sighed the sigh of the defeated. I have already endured so many insults like this, what’s one more? But perhaps I should have cursed, because it turned out that this injury was probably the tip of a much more disturbing iceberg.
THIS tendon tear was — drum roll please — quite possibly a DRUG SIDE EFFECT.
Say what now? Yes, you heard that right: tendon rupture as the side effect of a medication. A side effect which I had never heard of before, despite my expertise — despite even knowing about OTHER drugs that do this.
This is a complicated and fascinating topic, and I really went way down the science rabbit hole. NEW POST, a hefty one, about a 20-minute read, heavily referenced (some big footnotes), with a long audio version for members:
PainScience.com/blog/tendon-failure-as-a-drug-side-effect.html
~ Paul Ingraham, PainScience.com publisher
