5 Things Not to Do When You Have Tennis Elbow

Do you have pain, discomfort, stiffness or a burning sensation on the outside of your elbow?  Does it get worse when you turn a doorknob or make a fist?

If you’ve answered yes to to any of these 2 questions, then there is a good possibility that you have tennis elbow.  It doesn’t matter if you are professional athlete or a plumber, your chances of getting tennis elbow are the same.  Millions of people get it each year, yet most have no idea how they developed it.

It doesn’t matter how it happened, the main thing is that you need to repair and fix it, preferably in the shortest amount of time.  If you want to recover quickly, here are 5 things not to do when you have tennis elbow:

1) Cortisone shots – Despite the fact that they can give you short term pain relief, over the long term they are not a permanent solution that will heal your tennis elbow for good.

2) Medical devices and gadgets.  The most popular being electro shock wave therapy or any other heat based modality.  Basically all they do is provide heat to your injured muscles and tendons which increases the blood supply.  They do not repair the tear in your tendon and your pain relief will only last a day or two.

3) Doctors.  While it is always best practice to have you elbow pain diagnosed by a competent medical professional, the majority of Doctors do not specialize in tennis elbow.  It would not be in the Doctor’s best interest to send you away from his/her office without some sort of “remedy”.  This is the reason why they often resort to prescribing pain medications and recommend that you get an brace for your elbow.

4) Topical anti-inflammatory creams and rubs.  Again, these topical creams that you apply on your skin do nothing but give you sense of warmth around your elbow.  Regardless of whether you are applying a cool or hot based cream, they will only give you temporary relief without actually doing anything to help speed up your recovery and healing time.

5) Continuing with the activity that caused your injury in the first place.  You should immediately stop whatever it is you are doing that is causing your elbow pain and discomfort.  If it is job related and you can’t, you need to think on an alternative way to still get the job done without making your tennis elbow worse.

If you keep these 5 things in mind, you can recover faster from tennis elbow without making your condition worse.

Better yet, check out this tennis elbow video tutorial that will give you detailed step-by-step instructions on how to fix your tennis elbow at home.

 

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