Archive for the ‘August 2011’ Category

Many patients with tennis elbow report that their pain will often return despite wearing braces, stretching, ultrasound treatments or even getting cortisone injections.  They begin to feel like they just have a “bad elbow” and try not to overuse or irritate it.  In the last few years, researchers have been examining the way that we had typically treated tennis elbow and tried to come up with better treatment options that would give longer lasting relief.

First, it helps to understand what tennis elbow is.  Patients with tennis elbow actually have a condition called lateral epicondilitis (now you can see why we call it tennis elbow!).  This condition is degenerative in nature, causing little holes to develop in the tendons of the muscles along the outside of your elbow, causing pain.  If you looked at the tendons under a microscope, it would look a little like swiss cheese.  This degeneration occurs over a long period of time as you put extra wear & tear on the muscles.  Most of the time, this extra wear & tear comes from improper ergonomics, having tight medial forearm muscles or poor shoulder posture.

The old treatment options such as bracing, ultrasound or shots, didn’t really solve the problem that was causing the degeneration.  So the patient would feel better for a while and then the pain would return as soon as they returned to their normal lifestyle.  Newer treatments are focusing on helping the tendons become strong again and removing the reason why they were getting worn out.

One of the best ways to get the tendons to heal and fill in those swiss cheese holes is by increasing blood flow and irritating the area with Graston Technique.  Patients often start feeling a difference in just one or two treatments.  After the blood flow starts to improve and healing begins, you next need to evaluate their ergonomics at work and home to identify any irritating factors.  Next, we work on loosening up the muscles on the other side of the forearm and teaching them how to strengthen their shoulder to take pressure off of the arms and wrist. 

New cases of tennis elbow can fully resolve within 2-3 weeks and chronic cases can take up to 8-12 weeks with these new treatment options, depending on the amount of damage.