I’ve had for a while some pain from what is suspected tennis elbow.

All manageable and I just try to remember to do things like pushing the pram with both hands etc

Today whilst chopping kindling it flared up and was not only sore but I felt my grip loosen a little – very odd.

Anyone suffer?

Any hints/tips?

Get the injectionHad it a few years ago.
Tried various remedies.
Got the injection.
It’s never returned.

Mates had a really bad elbow after deciding to break, by hand, a fair amount of concrete. He’s seen physio and got exercises but had a go with my powerball, Google them, and seemed to help so got one. It’s not done him any harm and they do say it can help.

Eccentric wrist exercises are the ones that seem to have the highest incidence of success with tennis elbow:

[video]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=27LEoA0v6O8[/video]

This is helpful.

Dodgy Elbows

In my experience tennis elbow normally has a direct cause that you need to identify and change/eliminate. Last time I got it, it was due to a change in squash racket handle/grip size. seen it with people using screwdrivers a lot as well. Can you suss out what you’ve done to trigger it off ?

Another vote for eccentrics, and that Julian Saunders article is a good starting point. Other key points of the exercises are that they should be mildy painful to perform, and many folk find varying the angle of elbow bend (supported by a table) helps too.
This book has the latest info on effective treatment of them.

EDIT, I had tennis and golfers elbow in both arms for about 7 years (from climbing), sorted them with eccentrics and have been climbing and training harder, pain free, for 10 years since then.

Last time I got it, it was due to a change in squash racket handle/grip size

Yes, increasing the size of the grip should definitely help- whether it’s your squash racket, pram or axehandle. I would consider giving the wood chopping a rest until the pain goes, if possible, as that is what seems to be agravating the tendinopathy

Had bad tennis elbow, tried exercises helped a little.
Medication anti inflammatory tablets helped a lot.
But doc referred me to a specialist and he injected my own blood into the tendon and generally stabbed it loads to promote damage/repair and the blood cells to help repair.
I was very sceptical but after a few days of a sore elbow, the difference was night and day.
He also explained the footballs etc have the same thing done to speed up tendon injurys but they have to blood seperated to just inject the blood cells required to speed up repair.

But doc referred me to a specialist and he injected my own blood into the tendon and generally stabbed it loads to promote damage/repair and the blood cells to help repair.

See also dry needling- it all seems a little ghoulish but seems to work!

Eccentric exercises work OK, i also had acupuncture which was great for keeping the pain down whilst I did them.

Those tennis elbow bands seem to work pretty well to unload the painful area.

I’ve just had it flare up after a neck injury, so this is a timely thread. I will look in to the eccentrics.

i get it ( from using scissors at work a lot)

get yourself an epicundular(sp) cuff

it puts pressure further down the tendon, releasing pressure at the end that hurts, wear it a few weeks while it recovers

Complete rest will cure it. However in the real world complete rest is impossible: Get the steroid injection; sorted!

If you can sort it without an injection I would try to.
Multiple Cortico-steroid injections have been known to reduce the elasticity of tendons over time, making them more prone to injury in the long term.
A cortisone injection, epicondular cuff, icing, massage, or an Armaid will all give short term pain relief which may allow it to heal but won’t sort out the original cause, or strengthen the tendons.

I also found that sleeping in the wrong position could agravate it. Solved this by sleeping with my hand on the opposite shoulder, so that my arm looked a bit like it would if it was in a sling.
The wierd bit about mine, was that it didn’t bother me whilst riding my bike, but would catch me out when picking up a cup of tea.

+1 for epychondial clasp. I had a lot of trouble a few years ago and a short period wearing one of these removed all the symptoms. Plus nobody pokes sharp metal into parts of your anatomy!

I haven’t read all the responses about, I’ve previously had it. I had acupuncture and it worked a treat. Good luck as it is awful a bit like Plantar fascitiis!

i had this injury for 11 months. was a total bitch, just lifting a cup of coffee really hurt, tried all the anti inflam creams and jels, got one of them straps, did loads of stretches, nothing seemed to help, then had 2 courses of accu-puncture then seen a physio and he did an ultrasound and give me eccentric exercises, where u put your hand hanging over a desk or table. would lift my hand up and slowly lower it down, then would use a light weight and that cleared it after a couple of weeks.

I have it from (I suspect) weight training.

The way I have controlled it almost to the point of non-issue is by using a lacrosse ball to massage my forearms, triceps and biceps.

I have also changed exercises in the gym to remove single joint exercises and have started using wrist wraps on heavy pressing movements.

I can’t say it’s what I’ve had but self diagnosing it seemed like tennis elbow, or maybe should call it mountain biker elbow as I’m sure it’s been related to riding. Down to 2 and even just 1 ride a week at the moment and it’s gone away. Loads of riding and I get it. Sharp pain on the elbow joint just doing odd things around the house, picking things up etc.

And yes as above, riding it felt fine, but after riding it would kick in but at odd times. More so after I’ve rested it a bit. Exercise it and it would ease off.

Mentioned it to the GP whilst there for something else and she wasn’t interested.

The trick I found was not to go too intensively at the exercises while it was still bad.

Best one I’ve used was placing the palm of the affected arm on the wall in front of you at shoulder height, and bend the arm to lower yourself inwards, but use the other hand to push yourself out again to the start position.

Coupled with this tricep stretch, but concentrating on pushing up with the elbow against the hand rather than the other way around.

Hurts like a muther!

Best one I’ve used was placing the palm of the affected arm on the wall in front of you at shoulder height, and bend the arm to lower yourself inwards, but use the other hand to push yourself out again to the start position.

This I can understand because you are still eccentrically loading the wrist extensors (although not through full range, which is a bit odd). That triceps exercise has left me a little confused though. Are you sure it was tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis) that you had? It looks to me more like something you would do to treat a triceps tendinopathy

I got it this summer through digging hard ground, it got to a point I struggled to pick a cup of tea. I had physio through work and two cortisone injections through my doc, the second injection really did help after the first never made much difference.

It’s not to bad now but but 5 months later it still flares up if I do certain things.

Are you sure it was tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis) that you had? It looks to me more like something you would do to treat a triceps tendinopathy

I’m still not sure – although I had ‘classic’ tennis elbow pain, there were some subtle suggestions of ulnar nerve involvement, and certainly the triceps was very tight, which might have been a contributing factor in my case.

As a rock climber, I tended to have imbalance between biceps and triceps, so it may not be the right approach for everyone.

I found the eccentric exercise was good because, unlike wrist reverse curls with weight, or even with a light theraband, it didn’t seem to aggravate it.

I found a powerball was very good for me. Plis also a sportsphysio breaking needling the affected area was good. This hurt a huge amount but helped a lot.