"Tennis elbow" is one of the most common types of elbow pain we see in the clinic. It typically presents with painful gripping and lifting. Things like opening a jar, reaching to grab a jug from the fridge, pulling the sheets over in bed, or lifting a cup of coffee or tea up to take a drink will cause significant pain.
This is often caused by an overuse injury due to sudden overload (single event with excessive gripping like picking up a heavy carry on bag at an awkward angle) or prolonged overuse such as work related tasks involving repeated gripping for multiple days (like gardening all afternoon for the first day of the season). The cause could also be due to a change in work demands such as increased mousing/keying, increased tool use, or vibratory forces through the forearm.
It is very important to rest and avoid aggravating activities. The injured tendon (the tissue that connects the forearm muscles to the bone at the elbow) needs a chance to heal and rebuild. Applying enough load to drive tendon adaption and maturation without causing overload and re-injuring the tissue is challenging and requires expert guidance.
The use of a tennis elbow brace like the BandIT (BandIT Link) can be helpful for more strenuous or repetitive activity to reduce load through the injured area of the tendon. Icing and medication for pain management, as well as incorporating home exercises will speed up the healing process.
If left alone this can take up to one year to heal. With physiotherapy treatment the timeline is shortened to 4-6 months.
How Long Will This Take To Heal?
- 6-8 weeks if you come in shortly after the injury starts. If it has been more than 1 month history before seeking care, the healing timeline typically increases towards 8-12 weeks as the dysfunctional healing cycle and has progressed further along.
Prognosis - Physiotherapy is one of the only forms of effective treatment for the condition, but resolution within the 6-8 week window won’t happen for everyone. Outside factors such as work and hobby related strain can impair and delay healing, and more chronic presentations can sometimes take much longer to heal. Seeing full resolution within 6 months should be a reasonable target for the more difficult patients.
Of course this all starts with a physiotherapy assessment to determine if the symptoms are in fact tennis elbow and not something else. Let us know if you have any questions or need help addressing your elbow pain!
Yours in health,
Eric
