Tennis Elbow Treatment
Tennis Elbow is a chronic condition affecting the outside of the elbow. This is where the muscles that straighten your hand and extend your wrist attach.
It is the most common elbow injury, even surpassing that of Golfers Elbow.
Tennis Elbow is known medically as Lateral epicondylitis, which means it affects the outside of the elbow, whereas Golfers Elbow is know, as Medial epicondylitis affecting the inside of the elbow.
Golfers elbow tends to affect the muscles that close your hand and flex your wrist.
Why does elbow pain occur?
Tennis Elbow affects the muscles that attach onto the outside of the bones in your upper arm.
Tennis elbow often comes from over using these muscles and causing them to tug on their attachment point, creating inflammation and pain. Over time the tendon starts to get damaged.
This is why it is often seen in people who play tennis, but it can be seen in anyone who overuses the muscles of the forearm, such as hairdressers, desk workers, painters and gardeners.
Treatment
Treatment for Tennis Elbow is complex. Initially there is a need to calm the inflammation and allow the tendon to heal. For this ice works very well as does the tennis elbow straps that can be bought at a local pharmacist.
The straps work by altering the stresses that run through the tendon, allowing them to heal while you continue your work.
However, treating the site of pain alone, is not a long term solution to tennis elbow. As it is a chronic condition, it is important to assess the whole arm line, right up into the neck to work out where the weaknesses are.
If you are a tennis player, we would assess the grip size of your racket as incorrect sizes can lead to over gripping and therefore overuse of the forearm muscles.
If you are not a tennis player, we need to understand why you are over using these muscles, so we would asses the whole arm line and restrengthen and loosen the muscles as needed.
Strengthening
For a long term solution to this condition it is important to restrengthen not just the wrist but the whole arm.
As the muscles of the forearm get weaker, the muscles of the upper arm will start to assist and this can lead to the muscles at the front of the chest over working.
This in time, can lead to neck and even nerve issues, so it is important to treat the whole line.
We would start by strengthening the muscles that extend your wrist, usually using a light dumbbell.
We would assess the strength of your upper arm muscles and check that your firing patterns are correct. It is important that all the muscles fire in the right order, to stop compensation occurring.
We would also assess and if necessary treat any nerve issues that often accompany this condition.
The aim is to get a long term solution to the pain by getting rid of the initial causes.