It Hurts

[mike_belben]

Im afraid the last of my torn tendon will rip off if i do a pushup.  

[kantuckid]

Glad to hear your doping better Lynn. 8) Take er easy does it for a few.
Make no mistake, as we age those tendons don't recover so easily. Neither does yer back. 
Mine were dancing around in my shoulder recently. I had to do without my cortisone shot this week to avoid what was later learned to be a 75 vehicle pile-up right after I turned around on I-64 west. That shot does not much for what PT provides-it's mostly a punch at the osteo in the joint, not so much the tendons.   
I'll not argue against chiropractors as I've mentioned them before as having some real benefit. The chiros today are not even close to older versions in my own experience. KS, my home state with its proximity to MO, where many were trained in the past, had some VG ones. Any number of those around me now often utilize their many machines as the road to feeling better. As a HS athlete, at a large school I enjoyed the fact that we had not only student managers trained to do tape ups and such but also a physical trainer who was excellent in manipulation, as was the tradition of what I'll call old time chiropractors & DO's-Doctors of Osteopathy. 
Maybe as recently as 10 years ago, the last manipulation chiro near me retired. Lawyers are a factor I think but those machines seem to be their cash cows these days. I spent some years in a local Lions club where I became friends with a DO doc who had begun a practice at our local clinic. I was coaching baseball and had a neck issue that followed playing football for many years and asked if him if he did manipulations. He said he'd do my neck but I had to promise to tell no one as it wasn't his main purpose in the clinic. Same story with todays chiropractors-zero will do much hands on stuff as compared to those of the past.
After a referral by my neurosurgeon to a PT therapist I had returned to the past tradition of hands on and personal hands on therapy. By personal I mean doing things for yourself by use of your own body such as Yoga and McKenzie, as opposed to laying on some machine and expecting it to "fix" you. My current shoulder PT was begun by my MD shoulder docs order to a local PT clinic. It's small, yet that PT therapist is excellent. 90% of what I do to rehab my shoulder is me doing what he directs. Most of that you can do at home but from other surgical rehabs I know the value of directed therapy, at least in the beginning. The next to last thing I do each visit is being hands on manipulated by him. The last is a cold gel pack and electric stimulation. 
IT WORKS!
It's important with in-home treatments of back pain symptoms to know when to use a cold gel pack vs. a heating pad. 
For many years now athletes have used ice baths to relive muscles. 
With back issues it's very important to know if the problems structural or muscles or both or simply compounded by being generally out of shape.