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Orthodox Tennis Elbow Treatment I had pain in my elbows for a while, and so went to see my doctor. And she gave me the run through of how tennis elbow treatment is normally done in our healthcare system. All the different methods people normally try. I’ll briefly go over the different methods of tennis elbow treatment here, and you can go to the more in depth articles on the topics that are particularly useful to you. The first line of defense is taking anti-inflamatories and resting the elbow, which is what my doctor recommended for me. If you are really strict, you can do the entire RICE routine after a tennis elbow flair up (rest, ice, compress, and elevate) while taking ibuprofen or a similar NSAID (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory). This will be helpful in some conditions that cause tennis elbow pain, but not all, so check to see the specifics. I followed the rest and take ibuprofen regime for two weeks. It was right after Christmas and I fortunately had two weeks of winter break left before going back to college. So I rested, felt unproductive and slug-like, and for TWO ENTIRE WEEKS I rested my arms completely, only lifting them to hold spoon, fork, and knife. This didn’t help me, but had it really been tendon inflammation that probably would have helped. Physical therapy was next. It was recommended that I start doing very lightweight elbow strengthening exercises, but these just made my pain worse. For true mild tendonitis rest with physical therapy can help, but I’ve found physical therapy and physical therapists in general to be pretty hit and miss. Work out trigger points in your muscles before exercising them along with treating your tendonitis, and always ask around to see find the best physical therapist in your area. I personally found that working out the trigger points made my pain go away. It was great, and no one had even mentioned that trigger points could be an effective tennis elbow treatment. If the RICE, NSAIDs, and PE regime doesn’t work, and trigger points haven’t helped, then it’s time to get serious. The next thing to try is a cortisone injection, a steroid injection that will bring down the inflammation. This can only be done once or twice before it will weaken he elbow joint, but it has the real potential to improve your condition and ease pain, despite the long recovery period. Lastly, the final consideration is open joint surgery. This should be your absolute last resort and is only needed in a very small percentage of very serious tendon inflammation patients. I never even had to consider it. However, I think it’s best to know about all the options out there and it certainly gives you excellent motivation for trying everything else out there. I hope you don’t have to get surgery, but if you do it has a very high success rate. As always, more good info is better than less. Start with a resting and icing routine with the following tips, and go from there.
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