You’re mowing grass in your garden, lifting seasonal decorating boxes from a barn shelf, or maybe just scooping up your child when it happens: a searing pain in your elbow that moves up your arm and sometimes into your shoulder. If this situation has occurred to you, you may have developed a condition known as tennis elbow.
While this ailment can be excruciatingly uncomfortable and interfere with daily tasks, the good news is that assistance is available. Tennis elbow is a condition that affects more than just your elbow. Pain can extend to other parts of your body, including your shoulder. Furthermore, while your body needs to adjust for your elbow’s loss of flexibility, your shoulder may get uncomfortable.
Related to Best Tennis Elbow Braces To Help You Stay Injury Free
What Causes Tennis Elbow?
Tennis elbow is a term used to describe an overuse ailment in which the tendons in the forearm become inflamed, making it hard to elevate and move the arm. Tennis is the most prevalent cause, although it can also be induced by other sports and hobbies such as softball, baseball, raking leaves, and even excessive computer typing.
The muscle ligament to the lateral epicondyle can be strained by any activity, like repetitive grasping. The most prevalent age range for this ailment is between 30 and 60 years old, while it can affect people of any age group. Although the name suggests that this illness is limited to the elbow, discomfort can be felt across the brachial plexus, such as the shoulder.
Symptoms
Softness in the bony area from the exterior of your elbow is the most common symptom of tennis elbow. This is the point at which wounded tendons are joined to the bone. Tennis elbow soreness can spread from your wrist to your hand, as well as your top arm and shoulder. Often patients move, and they experience shooting agony in their elbow and shoulder.
Other Symptoms
Tennis elbow, incidentally, pertains to any overuse damage to this specific ligament. Tennis elbow can develop as a result of everyday activities such as:
- A pair of scissors
- Chopping up difficult foods
- Agriculture
- High-throw sports are those that need a lot of throwing.
- Swimming
- Piping, typing, and bricklaying are examples of manual labor that require repetitive rotation or lifting of the wrist.
There are occasions when there is no obvious cause.
Diagnosis Tennis Elbow
A simple test can be performed at home to determine when or not a person has a tennis elbow. With backward forearms and stiff elbows, stand back on a chair and place your hands on top of the chair back. Lift the chair as high as you can. Tennis elbow is a common symptom of this motion causing pain on the outside of the elbow.
To rule out other more serious disorders, such as osteoarthritis or elbow joint damage, an X-ray or an MRI scan may be required. Imaging, on the other hand, is rarely required. Before asking about the type of discomfort, the doctor will do a range of motion test using the arm. This is usually sufficient information to diagnose tennis elbow.
Because it encompasses the connective tissue, muscles, and ligaments inside the arm, an MRI provides a more detailed image than an X-ray. If the pain in the outside elbow does not improve after a year of conventional therapy, surgery may be indicated. If the nerves are squeezed, electromyography (EMG) can be utilized to determine this.
Tennis Elbow Treatment
Many situations can be handled without surgery, especially if you seek help as soon as you notice problems. The following are examples of non-surgical treatments:
Ho Tennis Elbow Can Be Reduced
It is critical to give heed to movement strategies during exercise or effort to prevent the risk of tennis elbow. Spreading the load to the larger muscles of the shoulder and upper arm is preferable to concentrating on the smaller muscles of the wrist and elbow.