Treatment of Tennis Elbow

To treat your tennis elbow, you will have to make conscious changes in your daily life since many day-to-day activities lead to this condition. If the following advices don’t help I suggest you take a look at this page. The tennis elbow treatment which is suggested there has helped me to get rid of this problem.

Tennis elbow is a condition that arises due to a problem with the tendons situated around the elbow. With the help of these tendons, we can flex our wrists. The extensor carpi radialis brevis, which is attached to a part of the elbow (lateral epicondyle) is said to cause tennis elbow or lateral epicondylitis.

This is a common injury among patients who suffer from elbow pain. Though the exact reason for this condition is still unknown, it could be due to small tears in the tendons that link the muscles of the forearm to the arm bone at the elbow. This condition is not merely a case of inflammation of the tendons in the elbow. It is a degenerative process borne of constant and forceful use. A tennis elbow results when the minute tears in this region do not heal completely in the tendon.

Tennis elbow treatment
You will have to learn how to avoid this pain by introducing small changes like the way you lift things, which can reduce pain caused by a tennis elbow.

Some of these changes are:

  • Basic tennis elbow treatment: To reduce inflammation, apply an ice pack to the affected area for about 30 minutes two or three times a day.
  • Do stretches: Here are some good exercises:
    • Hold your arm straight out before you and lock the elbow.
    • Let your palm hang downwards. Then, slowly stretch it upwards until the fingers are at right angles to your forearm. Hold this position for one minute.
    • With the palm face down, slowly stretch the hand down until the fingers are at right angles to the forearm. Hold for 1 minute.
  • How to use a racquet: The racquet you use should be of an appropriate size because an inappropriate one can lead to tension due to higher stringing. Do not play on hard surfaces, and do not use a flexed elbow to hold the racquet. Ask a tennis instructor for an evaluation of your swing and racquet.
  • Extracorporeal shock wave therapy: Sound waves are used to induce the tissues with micro trauma. This helps ease the pain.
  • Anti-inflammatory medications: These are good painkillers such as Ibuprofen and Aspirin that you can take orally to manage the pain and swelling efficiently.
  • Cortisone injections: A cortisone injection is a good tennis elbow treatment.
  • Elbow brace: Use an elbow clasp to realign the muscles.
  • Exercises: There are several exercises you can do to control the symptoms of, and the pain associated with tennis elbow.
  • Thera-Band FlexBar: This is a new tennis elbow treatment in which this device helps eliminate elbow pain.
  • Autologous Blood Injection & PRP: This is a blood injection that draws blood from the patient’s vein. The doctor then injects it into the damaged elbow to stimulate a response in terms of healing. Though there are studies that prove this to be a useful treatment, there’s no proof to show that this is better than other conventional treatments.
  • Platelet-rich plasma (PRP): This is a relatively new tennis elbow treatment similar to the autologous blood injection. Here, a concentration of platelets is drawn from the patient’s blood as they have growth properties that can aid in the healing process.

Tennis Elbow Exercises

If these tennis elbow treatment exercises don’t help you try this tennis elbow treatment. It has helped me.

Tennis elbow occurs when the elbow muscles are repeatedly under stress. The root cause for the elbow to feel stress is the action of pulling your hand backwards to make a forehand shot. Add to this any normal wear and tear in the region, and you feel immense pain in the region. If you are a golfer, gardener, carpenter, tennis player, or use your elbows constantly, you’re a candidate for the inflammation of the lateral side of the upper arm.

Tennis elbow is also a form of repetitive stress injury, so if you are already suffering with this condition, the best cure is to rest the elbow and let it heal naturally. Another cure is to warm up before playing a game, as this problem is the result of relaxed muscles that haven’t been exercised well during warm-ups.

Tennis Elbow Treatment: Stretching

Stretches are good exercises – in fact, here are some exercises you can do as a tennis elbow treatment:

  • Forearm Flexor: Stretch your arm out and let your palm face the sky. Use your other hand to touch the top of this palm and push it gently so that it forms a 90° incline between palm and the other arm. Don’t use any pressure on the wrist to achieve this.
  • Forearm Extensor: Now, do the same as above but this time, let your palm face the floor.
  • Wrist Exercises: You need to strengthen your wrist for relief from a tennis elbow. To do this, hold a lightweight pair of dumb bells in each hand, and do this exercise one hand at a time. With a dumb bell in one hand, put your arm over a table and bend the wrist up and down. Once you gain mastery over this exercise, you can use the other dumb bell and do the exercise with both dumb bells, with one in each hand.
  • Ball squeezing: Hold a squeeze ball in your hand and squeeze it to get back the durability of your elbow. This will help you carry heavier weights. Do this for a few seconds each day, not exceeding 10 reps per day.

If you do these exercises regularly, your elbows will be well-maintained and you probably won’t need any other tennis elbow treatment. They will also give you the necessary flexibility and stimulate blood flow to help heal the area.

Tennis Elbow Symptoms

If you have symptoms of tennis elbow mentioned in this article I suggest you try this tennis elbow treatment. It helped me and I hope it will help you too to get rid of the pain.

The term tennis elbow or lateral epicondylitis is a very common arm injury caused due to stress. It is described as the inflammation of the tendons that link the arm bone with the forearm, and whose stress point is around the elbow.

One would imagine this condition is mostly seen in tennis players, but it affects non-players too whose repeated and strong action of arm muscle contraction causes this condition. So if you are a carpenter, or are into gardening, landscaping, or play golf, baseball, badminton, and baseball, you’re prone to suffer from a tennis elbow.

Its cause is yet unknown, but this condition is generally believed to arise because of the abnormal wear and tear of the elbow joint or due to flexing of the wrist backwards.

Tennis Elbow Treatment: Knowing tennis elbow symptoms

The symptoms start slowly and build up to give the sufferer immense pain. Initially, the pain is just a dull ache or a sore feeling on the exterior of the elbow that stays on for barely 24 hours after any stressful physical activity. However, when this activity is repeated several times, the pain takes longer to subside to an extent that the patient can, in time, find it difficult to pick up a mug of coffee or even a newspaper. Pain shots through the hand and goes all the way up to the neck and shoulder too.
Other tennis elbow symptoms include tenderness in the elbow area and a weak grip to the extent of being unable to shake hands, turn a doorknob, lift light objects, bend the arm, etc. If left untreated, it can turn chronic, and soon, patients are in pain even when there is no movement in the arm.

Tennis elbow is also caused due to an affected nerve in the cervix, with the patient complaining of pain in the shoulder or due to the musculospiral nerve in the elbow. This kind of pain increases in the evening, making sleeping at night difficult. On waking up in the morning, the elbow is usually very stiff.

Tennis Elbow Surgery

Before going for a surgery which is risky and expensive you should really consider trying this tennis elbow treatment. There is a good chance you won’t need any surgery after that.

Tennis elbow is a very painful condition with shooting pain that begins in the elbow and then radiates through the shoulder and neck. Surgery is a viable option for this condition if the pain becomes unbearable, and fortunately, surgery has been very successful in many cases.

Tennis elbow surgery options
Before considering surgery, your doctor will ensure that you have undergone conservative treatment for the past six months.
There are two kinds of surgeries that are commonly done as a tennis elbow treatment. They are:

  • The first aggressive surgery: Here, the doctor will make a cut of about 3-4 cm in the arm. After this, he will trim the tendon sheaths and close the incision.
  • The second aggressive surgery: Here, the doctor will cut the arm open and remove the affected tendon from the bone by using a scalpel.

Both kinds of tennis elbow surgery are done on an outpatient basis, so the patient can go home the day of the surgery with his/her arm in a sling, depending on the severity of the problem. The elbow should be kept elevated and compressed to avoid inflammation, as excessive dryness or moisture will attack and weaken the scar tissues during the healing process. For best results, patients must follow the doctor’s advice and consult him/her periodically, particularly when the pain worsens.

Risks involved
The risks of invasive surgery include infection, nerve damage, bleeding, difficulty in extending or straightening the affected arm, having a painful or an ugly scar on the skin, and constant pain in the wrist or arm.
The treatment may not always improve the patient’s condition. The doctor can see if the surgery has treated the problem only after 4 weeks post-surgery. About 10-14 days after the surgery, the sutures are removed, and patients are told not to drive for a week from that day.

Recovering from tennis elbow surgery
The recovery period varies from one patient to another but does not exceed four to six weeks. Considering that the tendons take some time to heal, patients must not put pressure on the elbow during the healing process since doing so could result in permanent damage. Do simple exercises at home or at work for pain relief.