Elbow Conditions
Elbow pain is a common issue among everyone. Sports injury from Golfers, Crossfiters, work injuries from contractors, desk workers, carpenters and more. More often than not, our brain first jumps to tennis elbow or golfer’s elbow. As these are common and we hear about them a lot that is to be expected. But there are some other conditions that get missed
With a lot of wrist and forearm demand in your daily life we will see elbow pain if you don’t take care of yourself. Elbow pain can also come as referred pain from the neck or shoulder. The elbow is a stable joint and primarily only moved in one direction, forwards and backwards, otherwise known as flexion and extension.
As one of our core values we aim to empower you with knowledge and understanding what is causing the pain and what you can do about it. Here are some things you need to know about some common elbow conditions.
Tennis Elbow/Lateral Epicondylitis:
This is when there is pain along the OUTside part of your elbow. This pain will be very painful to the touch, gripping anything like a doorknob and when stretching the forearm as well (stretching your palm towards you).
What is the pain from? It’s from the tendon from the forearm muscles that attach to the elbow bone itself. This irritation and possibly inflammation from the tendon can cause this severe pain.
What to expect? Tendons don’t have a lot of blood flow, so these will take a longer time to heal themselves. Especially if you keep working it and don’t give it time to heal.
What should I do about it? Rest is going to be important here. Truly rest your elbow and get some therapy worked on it. This can be scraping or IASTM, Cupping, Dry needling and manual stretching. This is to address the tight muscle that can be overworked and pulling a lot of tension on the tendon itself. If you don’t address that then this will continue to happen. Therapeutic exercise is helpful as well, especially eccentric exercise. This loads the tendon in a favorable way that strengthens it rather than overstresses the tendon.
Golf swing mechanics that lead to Tennis Elbow: The biggest causes of this among golfers are, large divots and hitting a lot off of turf mat. Those mats don’t have as much give to them and all the force goes through the elbow. Other than those, swing characteristics would be “Casting”, “Chicken swinging” and “Scooping”. This is happening because you are using your arms and wrist too much in your swing. Physically limitations that can lead to this is, shoulder stiffness, upper back stiffness and pelvic motor control
Golfer’s Elbow/Medial Epicondylitis:
This is when there is pain along the INside part of your elbow. This pain will be very painful to the touch, gripping anything like a doorknob and when stretching the forearm as well (stretching your palm away from you).
What is the pain from? It’s from the tendon from the forearm muscles that attach to the inside elbow bone itself. This irritation and possibly inflammation from the tendon can cause this severe pain.
What to expect? Tendons don’t have a lot of blood flow, so these will take a longer time to heal themselves. Especially if you keep working it and don’t give it time to heal.
What should I do about it? Rest is going to be important here. Truly rest your elbow and get some therapy worked on it. This can be scraping or IASTM, Cupping, Dry needling and manual stretching. This is to address the tight muscle that can be overworked and pulling a lot of tension on the tendon itself. If you don’t address that then this will continue to happen. Therapeutic exercise is helpful as well, especially eccentric exercise. This loads the tendon in a favorable way that strengthens it rather than overstresses the tendon.
Golf swing mechanics that lead to Tennis Elbow: The biggest causes of this among golfers are, large divots and hitting a lot off of turf mat. Those mats don’t have as much give to them and all the force goes through the elbow. Other than those, swing characteristics would be “Casting”, “Chicken swinging” and “Scooping”. This is happening because you are using your arms and wrist too much in your swing. Physically limitations that can lead to this is, shoulder stiffness, upper back stiffness and pelvic motor control
Referred pain from the cervical pain:
This is more common than you think. So often do we see people come in with elbow pain and the elbow pain isn’t the cause or source of pain. A big tell for this is when you have been dealing with elbow pain for a long time and you’ve been actively treating it well, either by yourself or by another provider, Medical Doctor, Physical Therapist and or Chiropractor. If you’ve been consistent with treatment and you haven’t seen improvement after at least a month then there is something else going on and you need to look elsewhere.
Cervical (neck) disc and or nerves refer pain down the arm and can mimic pain like tennis elbow or carpal tunnel. So you do have to address the nerve pain and or disc in this example. Decompressing the disc with adjustments and exercise is a great way to do it. Decompressing the nerves with nerve flossing techniques is a great way to address the nerves as well.
If this is the case, you need to be evaluated by a trained professional. Schedule an appointment today.
Radial head joint dysfunction:
This is pain related to rotational movement of the wrist and pain along the outside of the elbow. If that little joint is involved it can lead to limited elbow range of motion along with wrist range of motion. This feels like a stiff elbow and wrist.
What can you do about it? This is best if it’s adjusted by a Chiropractic Physician. This cleaners up and recovers really fast if done properly.
Nursemaid’s elbow:
This is more common in pediatric patients. It’s a traumatic accidental injury. This is more common when you are holding your child by their hands/wrist and swinging them around. That pull sometimes can pull the radial hour out of place. You’ll know if this happens because your child will scream out like they are hurt and you feel like you did nothing.
What to do about this? Call the pediatricians office and get in to see them ASAP. They can’t see you then go to Urgent care and have them put the radial head back in place.
Dislocated Elbow:
This is when the elbow becomes completely dislocated and sometimes fractures part of the bone as well. This is a traumatic injury and is extremely painful. This happened to my brother in the BYU-UofU Las Vegas Bowl Game in 2015. As you fall with an out stretch arm to catch you, your elbow may just dislocate.
What can be done? Go to the ER and have them reduce the dislocation. This is so painful, that they usually have to put you under anesthesia to fix it.
What to expect? This is going to take 6-9 months to heal with physical therapy.
Funny story: This bowl game was my brother’s last game and they wanted to cut his jersey to get to the elbow and he won’t let them. They wanted to put him under anesthesia to fix it but he just said do it now. So they did and he said it was the worst pain he’s ever felt.
Interesting fact: Us Americans’ are difficult sometimes. For instance you just read that tennis elbow is pain in the outside of your elbow, but golfers are just as likely to get this, if not more, then tennis players. Golfer’s elbow is pain on the inside portion of your elbow, which tennis players can get just as much as golfers can. But in Asia, do you know what they call tennis elbow and golfer’s elbow? If a golfer has elbow pain (pain anywhere in the elbow) it’s called golfer’s elbow. If a Tennis player has elbow pain, it’s called tennis elbow. So simple, we just like to make things harder sometimes.
Jill is a young mother who enjoys being active and goes to crossfit 4-5 days a week in the morning. Lately she has been dealing with the elbow pain that is “killing” her day because of the pain. She also isn’t able to do as much at Crossfit because of the pain and weakness. Apone evaluation she is dealing with tennis elbow and golfer’s elbow, but also dealing with referred pain from her neck. We found this out because of her history and our process of testing, treating and then retesting. At first her grip strength was about 16 kg. After we treated her neck with soft tissue work, adjustments and exercise her grip strength jumped up to 27 kg. Closet to the strength of her healthy arm. Because of this we know that her neck is involved, at least to start. Later on, after her neck was cleaned up, she still had elbow pain. Then we referred to an elbow specialist and they started treating the golfer’s and tennis elbow pain. After a long road, she is back to activity and pain has reduced significantly.
If you are dealing with elbow pain and you haven’t been seeing improvement. Maybe this is keeping you from enjoying the game of golf or crossfit, schedule an appointment today and we will see what’s going on. Provo, Utah Sports Chiropractor.