All you need to know about tennis elbow injury

Tennis elbow — is just another name for a serious injury, scientifically called “lateral epicondylitis”. So, let’s see what this injury is all about.

General description

Tennis elbow is generally considered being a type of tendinitis. It deals with tendon swelling. It becomes a reason for sharp pain in the arm and elbow area. Tendon is a link, used as a connector between the muscle and the bone. In this particular case, we speak about the muscles of the lower arm and arm bone.

Speaking about the name, tennis elbow is a kind of injury, which you can easily get anywhere, not just at a tennis ground. Unfortunately, this injury is a rather popular one, and not that easy and fast in treatment. It can appear after doing any repetitive actions, connected with gripping something. Especially dangerous it can become if the activities involve thumb finger together first two of others.

Tennis elbow is especially common for people, aged to about 40. But still, it can occur with people of any age. In general, it seems to be the most popular elbow pain reason to visit a physio.

Injury causes

Tennis elbow is an injury, which tends to develop with time. Main cause — repetitive motions, which cause unnecessary extra tension and stress on the tendons.

It is a common injury for athletes, and those involved in such kinds of sports, as:

• Tennis;
• Weightlifting;
• Squash;
• Table Tennis;
• Badminton;
• Fencing.

All these sports activities have one thing in common. They are all connected with constant gripping something and doing a repetitive motion. In the case of tennis, badminton, squash, and table tennis it is a racket, fencing requires a tough grip of a fence or sword, weightlifting — bars with huge weights.

But the risk zone expands not only on sports. There are a lot of hobbies, jobs, and other activities, connected with repetitive arm movement:

• Computer work (especially connected with typing).
• Painting;
• Knitting;
• Carpentry works;
• Raking;
• Weight lifting.

Symptoms

Main and the most obvious symptom — strong sharp pain on the outside of the elbow. Pain is caused by a tendon injury. Sometimes pain can also be radiated up to the lower arm. If you are in pain while holding an object, or feel elbow pain while lifting something up, or doing simple things, like shaking a friend’s hand or opening a door.

Treatment

As it was mentioned above, such kind of injury is never an easy one to treat. It requires an individual treatment plan for each case, that should strictly be followed by a patient. So we can offer professional tennis elbow treatment. According to the nature of your injury, we would create a treatment plan, following which your recovery would go way faster and less painful.

Call RVA Physical Therapy in Richmond, VA today for customized treatment plan or to schedule your appointment — 804–396–6753, email info@rvaphysicaltherapy.com. Visit our website: http://rvaphysicaltherapy.com/