Tennis Elbow
Also known as lateral epicondylitis, tennis elbow is an injury that originally affected a lot of tennis players. However, nowadays the injury can affect a whole range of people and occurs just outside the edge of the elbow joint. It is classed as an overuse injury and generally affects people of middle age, say 35 – 60.
The pain occurs in the outer section of the elbow and if the severity of the case worsens, this pain can spread to the forearm and wrist. It is a difficult injury to recover from yet athletes can still play their sports with the aid of over-the-counter pain relief. A lot of people usually take more action though, as we’ll explain further down the page.
Symptoms
The pain area for tennis elbow is thought to be 1-2cm outside the elbow and sometimes further down into the forearm and wrist. The pain usually worsens, or starts in some cases, when the elbow is touched or the wrist is extended. Tennis elbow is an injury that can affect your grip and if you struggle to have a strong grip during any activity – you could well be suffering from this condition.
Causes
This is an overuse injury and starts due to the repeated contraction of forearm muscles. These actions result in the tendons around the elbow become inflamed or torn, which consequently causes the pain.
The above can quite easily be attributed to the actions of a racquet game, hence the name of this injury. The backhand shot in tennis is the one that is thought to do the damage, especially if the player has a poor technique. If there is a lot of wrist action while they’re playing the shot, the elbow tendons receive added strain and over time this will cause inflammation.
It’s not just athletes that can suffer with this though, anybody can. Contractors are professionals who are also quite high at risk, as repetitive activities like painting and hammering can quite easily cause injury to the elbow tendons.
Treatment
There is no set treatment for this condition and different methods work for different people. Before you go and see any specialist, you should definitely apply RICE treatment though – to reduce the swelling around the elbow. Anti-inflammatory drugs are also sometimes used with the obvious aim of reducing the inflammation.
If your condition is not improving, you should definitely go to a sports clinic. The physiotherapist will supply you with a list of exercises that will stretch and strengthen the affected muscles as well as advise you on amendments to your technique or lifestyle.
One of the popular treatments is to have cortisone injections though. This approach should be thoroughly discussed with an expert first, as there is no guarantee that the treatment will be a success and there are obvious risks when using steroids. The aim of the drug is to reduce the pain, swelling and inflammation of the elbow area and the majority of people find this to be successful.
However, if all fails, surgery may be the only option. It’s thought that just 10% of tennis elbow sufferers require surgery and doctors usually only refer people who have seriously restricted movement in their arm. There are a few different types of surgery, with some actually trimming the tendon while others focusing on removing and then reattaching it.
Prevention
The best piece of advice to prevent tennis elbow is to alter your technique. In tennis for example, the aim of the player should be to hit the backhand shot with the whole arm with the force of your full body behind it. In other sports or professions, you should speak to a coach or physiotherapist who will tell you how to relieve the pressure from the elbow. As a general note, the wrist should be working as little as possible as this results in too much stress on the forearms.
Another recommendation is to build the strength in the elbow. Exercises involving the flexion and extension of the wrist should help and make the area around your elbow much more immune against this injury. However, no matter how hard you train, if you fail to have the correct technique tennis elbow is very likely to return.