Lateral Epicondylitis, better known as tennis elbow, is a painful condition caused by overuse of the wrist and forearm muscle and tendons on the outside of your arm. It can sometimes be referred to as tendonitis or even tendinosis. Despite its name it isn’t exclusively caused by intense tennis matches. Any repetitive motion involving bending and extending the elbow and wrist with force can increase your risk of developing tennis elbow in the future. Swinging a hammer, pickleball racket or (shockingly) a tennis racket puts these relatively small muscles under a lot of strain, causing irritation to the tendon and surrounding tissue.

Alright, that’s cool and everything, but how do we treat it?

We at Advanced Physical Therapy have a wide array of treatment approaches that we can use our expertise and experience to address lateral epicondylitis, some of these approaches include the following.

-Manual therapy and joint mobilization, to improve mobility and reduce pain.

–Tool assisted soft tissue work, also known as Graston, a recommended technique by the most recent clinical practice guideline to address tennis elbow.

–Dry needling, a special technique using small needles to target irritated tissue to help reduce pain, trigger points and encourage healing. If you want to know more, we have a whole blog post dedicated to dry needling.

-A specifically designed exercise program to target your specific musculature and improve your overall function. As an aside to my patients reading this, have you done your home exercises yet today?

By using a carefully thought-out combination of these treatments, we can help you reduce your pain and get you back to swinging a tennis racket (or hammer) pain free.

Rurik