Tennis Elbow Educational Archive
Learn more about Tennis Elbow, it’s symptoms and how to treat it.
What is Tennis Elbow?
Tennis Elbow is a repetative stress disorder
Despite the name, tennis causes only about 5% of cases. You can get it after doing any kind of repetitive movement, like painting or using hand tools. Tennis elbow is a common injury that usually needs only minor treatment, but it takes time and rest to heal.
Where Does Tennis Elbow Cause Pain?
The pain is focused on the outside of your arm, where your forearm meets your elbow.
It’s related to a muscle and tendons in your forearm. Tendons connect your muscles to your bones. When you repeat certain arm movements, the tendons at the elbow end of a certain muscle — the extensor carpi radialis brevis (ECRB) muscle — may get small tears.
The tears may put stress on the rest of your arm, making it painful to lift and grip things. If you don’t get treatment, the pain can last a long time.
Tennis Elbow Symptoms
The most common symptom of tennis elbow is an ache on the outside of your elbow. Over time — from a few weeks to a few months — the ache turns into a constant pain. The outside of your elbow may be too painful to touch.
You can have tennis elbow in one or both arms.
Tennis Elbow Common Causes
The cause is repeated contraction of the forearm muscles that you use to straighten and raise your hand and wrist. The repeated motions and stress to the tissue may result in a series of tiny tears in the tendons that attach the forearm muscles to the bony prominence at the outside of your elbow.
As the name suggests, playing tennis — especially repeated use of the backhand stroke with poor technique — is one possible cause of tennis elbow. However, many other common arm motions can cause tennis elbow.
Diagnosis
During the physical exam, pressure will be applied to the affected area or you will be asked to move your elbow, wrist and fingers in various ways.
In many cases, your medical history and the physical exam provide enough information to make a diagnosis of tennis elbow. But if we suspect that something else may be causing your symptoms, X-rays or other types of imaging tests might be suggested.
Therapy
If your symptoms are related to tennis, we may suggest that experts evaluate your tennis technique or the movements involved with your job tasks to determine the best steps to reduce stress on your injured tissue.
Our therapies can teach you exercises to gradually stretch and strengthen your muscles, especially the muscles of your forearm. Eccentric exercises, which involve lowering your wrist very slowly after raising it, are particularly helpful. A forearm strap or brace may reduce stress on the injured tissue.
Preparing for an Appointment
Before your appointment, you may want to write a list that answers the following questions:
- When did your symptoms begin?
- Does any motion or activity make the pain better or worse?
- Have you recently injured your elbow?
- What medications or supplements do you take?
We may ask some of the following questions:
- Do you have rheumatoid arthritis or a nerve disease?
- Does your job involve repetitive motions of your wrist or arm?
- Do you play sports? If so, what types of sports do you play and has your technique ever been evaluated?