Golfer’s elbow Treatment

Golfer’s elbow causes pain in the inside of the elbow. It is also called as medial epicondylitis as the pain is felt in the area of medial epicondyle (inner bumpy part of the bone in the elbow).

Symptoms

Pain and tenderness on the inside of your elbow.
Pain on  lifting with your palm facing up, clenching ,twisting your forearm in activities like turning a door  handle,opening a jar.
some times pain is constant and occurs at rest and can affect your sleep..
Pain can travel down  your forearm towards the wrist .
Difficulty in holding a knife,fork,a cup or a pen or even to straighten your arm fully.

Causes   

It is an over use injury and occurs when the muscle and tendons on your fore arm are strained due to repetitive strenuous activity. It can also occur with banging or knocking your elbow. Tiny tears and inflammation develop near the medial epicondyle on the inside of your elbow.

Golfer’s elbow is not limited to people who play Golf but can occur with repetitive activities like gardening,painting,decorating,grasping,pitching a ball,shuffling papers,lifting heavy objects and handling heavy tools.

Golfer’s Treatment

The symptoms of Golfer’s elbow can last for several weeks, months or in some cases more than a year because tendons are slow to heal. Physiotherapy management includes assessment, special tests to confirm Golfer’s elbow, outcome measures to evaluate your progress in treatment and a treatment plan. Your Physiotherapist will also assess for any hypersensitivity of nerves in your forearm and posture/ bio mechanics of your shoulder complex.

The initial treatment focus on education on activity modification, reducing the pain, and improving the range of movement. Once the pain and Inflammation is under control the strength and flexibility is improved with stretching and strengthening exercises specific to Golfer’s elbow.

Your Physiotherapist will be the best person to advice you on activities which you need to stop doing or modifying to avoid repetitive strain which helps the tendon to heal. The other treatment used are cryotherapy, ultra sound therapy, laser, Mobilization, soft tissue release techniques. Stretching and strengthening exercises.

If are a person who  is involved in sports your Physiotherapist can advice on correct technique and can come up with a sports specific treatment plan .
Activity modification or correction, stretching and strengthening exercises are very important to prevent re injury.

Talk to your employer about modifying the activities which makes the pain worse. 

Measure to help prevent golfer’s elbow developing or recurring

• If you start having pain in the inside of your elbow, stop doing the activity that causes pain or find an alternate way of doing it before it becomes worse.
• Avoid using your wrist and elbow more than the rest of your arm. Spread the load to the larger muscles of your shoulder and upper arm.
• Play sport with proper training and correct techniques.
• Before performing any repetitive arm movements ,warm up properly and gently stretch your forearm muscles to avoid injury.
• Use light weight tools and enlarge the grip size .
• Increase strength and flexibility in your forearm muscles.