Elbow Pain or Inflammation?

Most of us have heard of the conditions tennis elbow or golfer's elbow as they are fairly common musculoskeletal problems. Unfortunately often occur from other activity besides playing too much tennis or golfing too much.

... If you're going to get injured it would at least be nice if it happens while having fun!

These conditions are actually sister conditions of the same type of problem, that being pain and inflammation of the elbow, as a result of excess strain to the soft tissues, in particular, the tendons. They are also forms of tendonitis simply translated means 'inflammation of tendons'.

A tendon is a connective tissue that attaches muscle to bone. For example, if you hold your arm out and flex your wrist down, you would be using the flexor muscles of the forearm. The tendons that attach those muscles to the bones around the elbow joint can become irritated and inflamed as a result of strain, hence tendonitis. The same applies to the extensor muscles of the forearm, i.e. those that extend your wrist back. So basically the difference between golfers and tennis elbow are that golfers elbow occurs on the inside of the elbow and tennis elbow on the outside of the elbow.

More commonly these problems result from occupations that require a lot of computer work or those with high repetition such as factory workers for example.

So what can be done to help with tennis or golfer's elbow?

The first thing is to identify the cause and remove or at least reduce the stress on the tissue.

However, this may not be enough once the tissue is irritated or damaged so other approaches like therapy might be necessary. Things like therapeutic ultrasound, electrical stimulation, cold LASER therapy, acupuncture, and massage can all be very helpful.

It may not be entirely possible to reduce the stress from certain jobs so it is often helpful to use an elbow brace to reduce the amount of strain while working.

If you're suffering from pain in your elbow, either work-related or fun related. Please give us a call. We offer services that may help. 519-258-8544