If you’ve been the victim of tennis elbow for several months, you are probably wondering to yourself, is tennis elbow permanent? No doubt you have tried every method that promised healing tennis elbow, but still have found no real tennis elbow cure.

The Pain Of Tennis Elbow – And Disability Can Lead You To Depressive Thoughts

The frustration and pain you have felt can allow you to fall into a sinkhole of depression, filled with thoughts such as:

▸ I’ll never be able to play softball with my son. He’ll grow up not knowing how to hit a ball.

▸ I’m just going to be one of those who never heal from tennis elbow. I’ll be losing my job, my house, and my family.

▸  I’m going to end up on disability very soon, for the rest of my life. At least I could collect a paycheck.

▸ I’ll never be able to do anything that I love doing. This tennis elbow is permanent.

By dwelling on these thoughts, you give them a legal right to take hold in your body and interfere with healing.

You Have A Choice Of Your Thoughts About Healing Tennis Elbow

Compare these thoughts with the following new thoughts:

▸ I’m getting better and better every day.

▸ Today the light will shine on whatever I need to know to be a victor in
healing tennis elbow. I’ll find my tennis elbow cure.

▸ I’m doing all the right things today to cause healing of my tennis elbow today.

▸ I have already made great progress in overcoming and healing tennis elbow.

Space For Healing Tennis Elbow

See the difference between the two scenarios?

The second set of thoughts allows space for healing tennis elbow. The first set doesn’t allow any chance for a tennis elbow cure to come in from what you read, what you hear, and who you talk to.

By the term “allowing space for healing tennis elbow”, what is meant is that there’s a ray of hope that something positive will happen.

That ray of hope is a crack in the doorway that appears almost totally closed to you when you have pain.

By cleaning up your thoughts and aligning them up with healing tennis elbow, you are ‘allowed’ to approach the door.

When the light starts to come through the door, followed nearby is a flow of opportunities.

Some of those opportunities include coincidences:

▸ You get a phone call from a friend you haven’t spoken to in years and guess what… that friend healed from tennis elbow last year.

▸ While on the job, you meet a retired doctor or chiropractor who has seen hundreds of tennis elbow cases, and had a success rate.

▸ Your children ask you to participate in some type of activity with them and you notice a new way to move that decreases your pain.

Align Yourself With Healing

That’s why asking is tennis elbow permanent is not the right thing to ask. Are you truly looking for a tennis elbow cure? Are you determined not to end up on disability which will only hurt your income and quality of life for the rest of your life? If you are, then you will align yourself with the healing of tennis elbow.

You’ll do all the right things nutritionally, too.

Tennis elbow affects the elbow joint and the tendons and soft tissue surrounding it. That means that you must feed the joint and tendons and soft tissue what it needs to grow stronger. You must exercise it to grow stronger as well.

Nutritional Healing For Tennis Elbow

Below are a few dietary tips that could make a big difference in healing tennis elbow.

1. Eat Enough Protein.

This means eat it at every meal. It’s not the entire meal, just a portion of your meal. Protein means high quality foods such as chicken, turkey, fish, eggs, beef, buffalo, bison, and dairy products.

2. Take A Multi-Vitamin And Mineral Tablet

Unfortunately everyone is deficient in a vitamin and mineral. All the studies for decades have proven this. So bone up to the fact and take a good one.

And don’t get weirded out about the fact that the better ones will have to be taken in dosages. You can’t fit all the nutrients that are needed in one pill, and any company that tells you so has an unbalanced formula.

3. Increase Your Antioxidants

Vitamin C, A, E and D are antioxidants that accelerate healing of any tissue. Don’t be without them.

Why You Need Nutrients For Healing Tennis Elbow

Because these dietary tips will not bring immediate relief, you must ask yourself why. The answer is that nutrition and feeding your joints properly doesn’t result in healing tennis elbow overnight – or healing anything overnight. It’s unreasonable to think so, too.

That’s because torn tissue has a lot of damaged cells that need to be repaired. The repair process takes time and if you don’t have the necessary building tools, the process is slowed down even more.

Allow Time For Healing Tennis Elbow

Another consideration in healing tennis elbow is that every tissue of the body takes a certain amount of time to heal.

For example, skin takes about 6 to 8 weeks to heal and to show new skin cells that are on the surface of the skin.

Tendons can take 8 to 12 weeks to heal and joints may take 3 months or 4 months. Joints receive less blood supply than other parts of the body and as a result, they need more time.

So with all this in mind can you see how inappropriate the question, is tennis elbow permanent really is? Can you see that your tennis elbow cure is on the horizon and that healing tennis elbow is possible?

Here’s a book that can give you a big healing boost, one that I like a lot. It’s called Tennis Elbow Secrets Revealed.

Tennis elbow braces and supports fall under the category of orthotics. They can be made from different types of materials including metal, plastic, elastic bandages, or a combination of two or more of them.

How A Tennis Elbow Is Fitted To You

Most tennis elbow braces and supports are standard ones that come in sizes of extra large, large, medium and small.

However, if your condition is severe and complicated, it’s possible that a physician will order a specialized tennis elbow brace for you. In this case, your arm and elbow measurements will be taken to insure that the tennis elbow brace fits you perfectly.

Tennis Elbow Braces Are Created With An End Result In Mind

Your tennis elbow brace has to take into consideration that you have difficulty moving your arm. For this reason, many of the ones available on the market are ones that may be strapped on top of your arm and are held with fasteners such as Velcro.

Just because you are in pain when you move the arm and hand doesn’t mean that you’re better off immobilizing it. In fact, research studies have shown that immobilization can make the condition worse in the long run.

A little bit of movement is required, and that little bit of movement will aide in lymphatic vessels pumping out some of the inflammatory compounds trapped in the area that are responsible for the pain.

Tennis elbows could be created to not allow any motion, and these types would only be a good idea in the event that there are complications.

For example, a person has tennis elbow along with a fractured arm or rotator cuff syndrome at the same time. Most likely in this case, the tennis elbow brace will be made from plaster of paris, and be a traditional type of cast.

Your Physician Will Determine The Next Step

It’s also possible that you may start out using a static tennis elbow brace – one that doesn’t allow any motion – simply because your inflammation is so great in the beginning may be a good thing.

This is for the doctor to determine.

Tennis elbow braces can also be created to permit movement and support weak muscles. Some braces may be helpful when there are spasms that won’t stop, as well.

There’s one other type of tennis elbow braces and supports, and that’s a tennis elbow brace that may be used during rehabilitation.

You can obtain information on this type of brace from your physical therapist.

Who Is The Best Person To Visit About A Tennis Elbow Brace?

There’s a specific specialty of medicine dedicated to the creation of braces and supports for the different parts of the body. The name of this type of specialist is called a licensed orthotist.

To become a certified orthotist, the person must complete a residency of one year and pass an exam. The person is certified by the American Board of Certification in Orthotics & Prosthetics.

Remember These Pointers About Tennis Elbow Braces

If you do use a tennis elbow brace, it’s important to remember these tips:

1. Tennis elbow is not permanent. You will get over it.

2. If you get a tennis elbow brace that’s similar to a cast, you won’t be able to move your muscles. This can contribute to atrophy of the muscles.

Tennis elbow may have resulted from weak muscles to start with, so really give this one some thought before jumping in and agreeing with the doctor.

3. You may be better off using ice and heat to recover, along with strengthening exercises.

Tennis elbow braces can be one of those things that seems like an excellent idea but in reality it’s not. Do discuss it thoroughly with your doctor and ask a lot of questions.

For more info on how to build up and strengthen the area, I suggest you get the ebook, Tennis Elbow Secrets Revealed. It has already helped a lot of people recover from tennis elbow.

Acupuncture for tennis elbow is one of the conservative therapies for tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis). Some of the other conservative treatments include:

• Ultrasound
• Low Level Laser
• Cortisone Injections

Ultrasound and low level laser don’t have any side effects associated with them. See the resource (Schmerz. 2008 Feb;22(1):9-15) for more information. Their low cost and successful outcomes make them viable options for those with lateral epicondylitis.

Conservative treatment of tennis elbow for medical treatment is cortisone injections. But there’s a risk in this method: side effects and changes in the tissues around the elbow.
That makes cortisone treatment controversial and even questionable.

Tennis Elbow Acupuncture: Does It Work? First Get Past Bad Attitudes

So now that you know about the “conservative” treatments, let’s review a few medical studies and comment on them about the topic of acupuncture for tennis elbow.

Researchers in Germany wanted to evaluate the effectiveness of acupuncture for orthopedic diseases including lateral epicondylitis by evaluating all the studies.

This is kind of the laser way to do research to get it published because they only do minimal work “reviewing” studies. Also, it’s a way for them to try to establish being bossy!

You must know what I mean. Haven’t you ever had someone at work who loves to critique what everyone else is doing while they want you to believe that they’re perfect themselves?

So this is the attitude these scientists had going into the study. Well, they decided that all of the studies on acupuncture for tennis elbow and other orthopedic diseases were not done well. No surprise there!

They concluded with the statement that laser acupuncture for tennis elbow is better than regular acupuncture for lateral epicondylitis because there are fewer side effects.

Side Effects Of Acupuncture

Now anyone who knows anything about tennis elbow acupuncture knows that the side effects are pretty limited and really no big deal at all. Here’s a list of some of them:

• Reduced pain (this is what you want!)
• Perhaps a drop of blood appears when the needle is removed in one of 20 needle sites
• A feeling of tingling sometimes that results when the right spot is selected
• Sometimes tiredness after the treatment (take a nap)

Knowing this, do you see how crazy and biased some of these research studies really are?

Pushback From Other Scientists Vying For Top Dog

This idea of trying to have the final word on a topic by writing a review study is pretty prevalent in the medical literature.

The scientists at the Foundation for the Study of Traditional East Asian Medicine in Amsterdam decided to use the same strategy in 2004. (Source: Rheumatology (Oxford). 2004 Sep;43(9):1085-90. Epub 2004 Jun 22.)

In essence, their report was a rebuttal to the previously mentioned study, saying that internationally, acupuncture is an accepted treatment for many conditions although research on tennis elbow was just promising – not effective but at least it was a relatively safe procedure.

It sounds to me like they just didn’t want to step on the Top Dog’s toes. Big dogs do bite, you know?

A few months later, Canadian doctors had to put in their opinion on the matter. They found that all studies examined – six total – showed that acupuncture for lateral epicondylitis was effective for short-term relief. And five of the six studies showed that acupuncture was more effective than control treatments.

Real Research Studies Involving Lateral Epicondylitis Sufferers

In another study, the researchers from China – where acupuncture is really done well because the Chinese developed it and perfected it, by the way – gave acupuncture for tennis elbow to three different groups of about 30 patients. (Source: Di Yi Jun Yi Da Xue Xue Bao. 2004 Nov;24(11):1328-9.)

One group got electric acupuncture. Another got Fu needling acupuncture without electric therapy to stimulate the needles and the third group got a combination of both.

Electric acupuncture is a method whereby electric current is attached to the needles. It’s not a shocking type of feeling, but pretty gentle.

It feels like tingling and that’s about it. You’ll never feel a jolt of electricity from electric acupuncture!

Fu needling is a specific type of needling named after its creator, a man with Fu as his last name. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find out much more about it. Fu needling is one of the closely guarded Chinese acupuncturists’ secrets.

All the patients experienced pain relief but the ones that received both treatments did the very best. This report was published in the journal called Di Yi Jun Yi Da Xue Xue Bao. Not exactly one you’d be reading on your own spare time.

Moxibustion May Be Used During Tennis Elbow Acupuncture

In another Chinese study (Source: J Tradit Chin Med. 2004 Sep;24(3):194-5.), the type of acupuncture for lateral epicondylitis tested was moxibustion and point injection right into the elbow. Both these are not ordinary types of acupuncture.

Moxibustion is a method of acupuncture where a cone similar to an incense cone is placed near the acupuncture spot.

The cone is organic, containing moxa, which is another name for mugwort. Sometimes the cone is replaced with a small pile of dried mugwort herb. Mugwort is known for its detoxifying properties.

The cone is lit on fire and burns slowly; hence, the name of moxibustion. As it burns, it transmits the healing mugwort herb into the skin via the acupuncture point, stimulating the point and what that point does for the body.

If the point is blocked, it opens and the acupuncture meridian now becomes a stream of flowing energy.

Moxibustion doesn’t burn the skin surprisingly. The practitioner watches the moxa burn to make sure nothing bad happens to the body, and the “fire” is more like a slow smoldering, not a raging flame!

For point injection acupuncture, the doctors injected Chinese herbs called Dan Shen and Ye Mu Gua right into the elbow that had lateral epicondylitis.

According to the report, 30 of 50 patients were cured. Two patients had nothing happen at all. And the rest improved.

Acupuncture is a drugless treatment for lateral epicondylitis. If it didn’t work so well, the Chinese wouldn’t keep treating tennis elbow with acupuncture.

So now that you know the harmlessness of tennis elbow acupuncture, will you consider it? If not, really do try to get the ebook, Tennis Elbow Secrets Revealed.

Using Heat Or Ice For Tennis Elbow Is An Ancient Treatment

And you can easily understand how back in the early days of civilization, using heat or ice for tennis elbow was one of the most natural types of tennis elbow treatments.

Even before refrigeration hit the scene as the latest and greatest technology, ice was available.

It’s entirely possible that those who lived in cold climates saw the value of using ice to numb an area that was hurting, and before long, ice became one of the established tennis elbow treatments.

Heat is another no-brainer. How many people in ancient days saw the value of sitting in a hot springs where their ailments were relieved? Probably all of them! One didn’t have to be a doctor to realize that heat would be soothing to the pain of tennis elbow.

Using Heat Or Ice For Tennis Elbow: When Is The Best Time?

But how do you use heat or ice for tennis elbow and when is it appropriate to do so?

The use of heat or ice for tennis elbow follows simple rules:

1. Determine How New The Injury Is

Heat and ice both are used for the treatment of many different types of sports injuries, not just as tennis elbow treatments. They’re also used for traumatic injuries, and is pretty successful as a pain killer.

Isn’t that amazing in itself – that you don’t necessarily have to take a pill to decrease pain? You can decrease pain by taking specific natural and conservative actions that will cut the pain immediately.

Yet our society is hooked to the idea that we must have a painkiller medication to kill pain, and some people can’t imagine that anything natural could work!

In new injuries, there will often be a lot of inflammation (rule #2), and this means that using cold treatments (ice) will be effective.

In older injuries, they respond better to the application of heat as in hot packs. The heat brings extra circulation to the area.

2. Determine Whether Inflammation Is Great Or Not

Thus, the rule of when to use heat or ice for tennis elbow is whenever there’s inflammation, use ice. To determine whether of not inflammation is the main problem, ask yourself this question:
Have I re-injured myself by performing certain movements that bring on pain?

If the answer to the question is yes, then you can consider that inflammation is interfering with healing. Start out with a cold pack, then use heat afterwards. (see rule #3)

3. Consider Using Both Treatments

There are times when you can use both treatments. If ice numbs the area and slows down blood flow, you want the ice to work directly against inflammation.

If heat warms the area and brings extra nutrients to the area, you want this physiological action – but not when the area is already inflamed.

But using innovation and creativity, man came up with the idea that you could use both together for a better clinical result.

When would this be most appropriate? When there’s a lot of inflammation or a lot of chronic pain. Both situations warrant the alternating use of heat and cold – or cold and heat.

Here’s An Example: Reinjury

You just reinjured your elbow in doing some type of activity. The pain is throbbing type of pain, which indicates lots of inflammation.

What to use: Cold first, followed by heat. By using ice treatment first, you can decrease the inflammation, then speed up the circulation to clean out the area. Follow with cold again and heat afterwards. See how this works?

Here’s Another Example: Dull Pain

You wake up with the same old dull pain of tennis elbow. What to use: Heat first to bring added nutrients to the area of the tennis elbow, followed by cold, then use heat again.

Whenever you use heat or ice for tennis elbow together, you are creating a pumping action within the tissues. The heat pumps in the nutrients; the ice pumps out the inflammation. It’s a nice little arrangement – and it’s all controlled by you.

When Would You Make The Wrong Mistake?

Just to flesh out your knowledge on the topic, it’s good to look at ice or heat treatments from a perspective of when you absolutely shouldn’t use them.

Absolutely don’t use heat treatments when you feel an exceptional amount of heat coming from the site of the injury. In this case, you must use ice first.

And absolutely don’t use ice treatments when there’s been any nerve damage over long periods of time. Use heat to stimulate the circulation to the area.

That should clear up any mistaken ideas you may have. After following these simple guidelines, go after your healing.

But do remember that one of the best ways you can accelerate healing is to strengthen the area with exercise. You’ll find info about that in the ebook, Tennis Elbow Secrets Revealed.

The bottom line here is that if strengthening exercises for tennis elbow are done within the first four weeks of developing lateral epicondylitis, you can expect pain improvement.

You can also expect to heal faster from tennis elbow.

Idea Backed By Research

This isn’t just some hypothetical mumbo-jumbo or some idea that’s not tested. It’s real. It’s actually tested by Korean researchers who reported their results in the journal Clinical Orthopedic Surgery in September of 2010. (Source: Clin Orthop Surg. 2010 Sep;2(3):173-8. Epub 2010 Aug 3.)

And they didn’t have the tennis elbow patients perform their strengthening exercises at the research laboratory or the hospital every day while being carefully watched by physical therapist researchers. The patients did the tennis elbow strengthening exercises at home – in the privacy of their homes.

The physical therapist did show them how to do the exercises, though at the research laboratory or hospital. They had to have some control of what was going on.

And then he sent them home with instructions on how often to do them and how many to do.

What I like about this study is that it is reproducible by the average Joe Smith and Jane Smith with lateral epicondylitis.

What Are Strengthening Exercises For Tennis Elbow?

Strengthening exercises for tennis elbow are exercises done with weights – or bands that take a muscle from weak and flabby to strong and pain-free. Here are some other benefits that you would expect to happen from tennis elbow strengthening exercises:

☑ Feeling of more confidence

☑ Feeling like you’re empowered

☑ Feeling like this tennis elbow is not going to get you down

☑ Standing up straighter

☑ Smiling more often (watch and see for yourself)

☑ Increased endorphin production in the body

(these are the feel good hormones that make you love life)

☑ Desire to start to get your whole body in shape

☑ Better insulin sensitivity

☑ Better blood sugar levels

☑ Better bone density and more

Motivation: Start Your Strengthening Exercises For Tennis Elbow

And here’s a tip that a California dietitian gives her clients when they don’t want to exercise: you don’t have to want to exercise all you have to do is GET UP. Get up out of bed and put on your workout clothes.

This alone is enough for many to start strengthening exercises.

Just like those patients worked out at home, you could do the same – and that means you have direct control on your lateral epicondylitis. If that’s not exciting news, I don’t know what is!

So after one month there was a significant improvement in pain levels with the strengthening exercises.

By the way, you should know that those who didn’t get the strength exercise plan until the 2nd or 3rd month after their diagnosis still got improvement by doing the exercises.

What all this means is that you have a choice. You can drag out your pain and misery – or you can get your relief now.

You see, by the end of one month, 27% had NO PAIN or only occasional mild pain.

You probably don’t even have to exercise daily and could take off the weekends.

What You’ll Need To Get Started

You could get some exercise bands, which look like big rubber bands shaped like tubes. These work well for strengthening the elbow and forearm muscles in lateral epicondylitis.

Now how hard is it to motivate yourself to get some hand weights of different sizes – 2.5 pounds, 5 pounds, 10 pounds, 15 pounds and 20 pounds? And to do your exercises once a day for 30 days?

Remember – before you answer this question – that if you’re anything like the lateral epicondylitis patients in the study, then you have a 37% chance of having no pain in 30 days. Otherwise, if you’re not like most patients, you still have an 88% chance of no pain by the end of the 12 weeks.

But if your mind is thinking, you would have figured out that you wouldn’t have to do the exercises after 30 days if you had no pain then, would you?

So what are you doing still reading? Isn’t it time to get on these strengthening exercises now?

One place you can find them is in the ebook, Tennis Elbow Secrets Revealed.

What’s that – you still aren’t motivated? Well, then imagine these benefits that people get from exercising:

☑ More sex drive

☑ More energy during the day

☑ Starting to lose weight

☑ Looking more radiant because your blood isn’t stagnant anymore; now it’s circulating faster throughout your body

Is that enough to get you going?

And remember: strengthening exercises for tennis elbow work for 37% of those with lateral epicondylitis when started as soon as possible after the symptoms develop.

If you have ever had tennis elbow for awhile, your doctor may have recommended tennis elbow surgery. It’s best that you know what happens during surgery, rather than have the doctor plunge right in and do it – and find out later what may have gone wrong!

Not Everyone Has Lateral Epicondylitis Surgery

The first thing to know is that physicians only advise patients to have tennis elbow surgery procedures when other treatments such as those listed below have failed.

• Bracing (immobilization)
• Physical therapy and rehabilitation
• Cortisone injections
• Shock wave therapy
• Platelet-rich plasma
• Low-dose thermal ablation

In these cases, the person has been suffering for months and sometimes years with his tennis elbow. He secretly wishes that surgery could be performed to take away his pain.

The second thing to know is that the muscle or tendon that is operated on is the extensor carpi radialis tendon. The muscle itself ends in a tendon and either part of it may be repaired during surgery.

Different Types Of Elbow Tendonitis Surgery

The most three most common types of tennis elbow surgery procedures are ones that use methods to release the extensor tendon: open, percutaneous, or arthroscopic.

1. Open Lateral Epicondylitis Surgery

Open surgery is surgery where the surgeon cuts open the skin and exposes the area. The repair is done by re-connecting the muscle under local anesthesia.

2. Percutaneous Elbow Surgery

Percutaneous surgery is surgery done when a needle punctures the skin. When surgery is done in this manner, there’s only a small hole in the skin, which seals and heals easily. The open area isn’t prone to as much infection as that from an open surgical procedure.

3. Arthroscopic Lateral Epicondylitis Surgery

Arthroscopic surgery is when an endoscope is inserted into a joint to treat the damage to a joint. The surgeon can view a video screen and watch where the surgical instruments he is using touch different anatomical structures.

Arthroscopy is used frequently for knee, wrist, ankle, foot, shoulder, and hip injuries besides for tennis elbow.

Studies On Tennis Elbow Sugery Quite Interesting

After going to the medical literature to read the studies on the topic of lateral epicondylitis surgery, several studies came up that I thought you should be aware of.

The first one – a review study – comes out of Australia. Here’s what the researchers found:

▸ When open ECRB surgery (extensor carpi radialis brevis) was compared to radiofrequency microtenotomy, pain was less in the radiofrequency microtenotomy surgery for tennis elbow.

In this 20-minute surgery, a surgical instrument that looks like a pen delivers low temperature radiofrequency energy with saline. A gas forms at the tip of the pen and contacts the damaged tissues which induces a healing response. (Source: Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2011 Mar 16;(3):CD003525.)

▸ No difference in pain or tenderness on palpation was found between open ECRB surgery and surgery that involved decompression of the posterior interosseous nerve.

▸ One study found that those who received percutaneous release rather than tennis elbow surgery that involved open release of the ERCB muscle had better elbow function afterwards. (Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2011 Mar 16;(3):CD003525.)

▸ Another study found comparable results between open surgical release of the ECRB and botulinum toxin injection at two years follow up. The botulinium toxin injection is another example of a tennis elbow surgery procedure done during the surgery. (Source: Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2011 Mar 16;(3):CD003525.)

▸ One trial found that extracorporeal shock wave therapy (ESWT) for lateral epicondylitis seemed to improve the pain the tennis elbow sufferers felt at night but overall there was no difference when compared with percutaneous tenotomy at the one-year mark.

The ESWT is where a shockwave is applied to the area, which induces the healing process.
(Source: Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2011 Mar 16;(3):CD003525.)

So are you thinking what I’m thinking? Are you wondering about the effectiveness for elbow tendonitis surgery? It’s not reported in the literature so far.

Let’s look at a few more studies.

▸ In a French study, reported in December 2010, (Source: Chir Main. 2010 Dec;29(6):373-7. Epub 2010 Oct 14.) surgeons injected fat into the elbow of eight patients in lateral epicondylitis surgery. All other methods had failed for the eight patients who participated. Five patients had improvement in their pain.

▸ In a study in Egypt, the researchers found that half of the patients who had arthroscopic surgery were pleased with the results, whereas only 37% who had percutaneous surgery were satisfied. (Source: Arch Orthop Trauma Surg. 2011 Mar;131(3):383-8. Epub 2011 Jan 21.)

The scientists reported that arthroscopy led to better functioning of the elbow but it is a more difficult type of surgery to do than percutaneous surgery.

Tennis Elbow Is Not An Inflammation, Say The Docs

In March 2010 Doctors at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans reported that lateral epicondylitis is no longer thought to be caused by inflammation. When the extensor carpi radialis brevis tendon was examined under the microscope, they didn’t see an inflammation of any kind.

They reported here that arthroscopic techniques worked better than other surgeries because the surgeon has the ability to visualize and then repair any problems that he sees.
(Source: J Shoulder Elbow Surg. 2010 Mar;19(2 Suppl):31-6.)

Open Tennis Elbow Surgery Works

A New Zealand study reported that the open technique offers excellent results with very few complications when they followed up 10 years later. They had reviewed cases of 158 people who all used the same surgeon.

The average age of the patients were 42 years old. The results were good to excellent in 95% of the patients. None of the patients needed any additional surgery.

(Source: J Shoulder Elbow Surg. 2010 Apr;19(3):363-7. Epub 2009 Dec 11.)

However, another study found that there was a 98% success rate in open muscle resection for elbow tendonitis surgery. The surgery was done under local anesthesia.

In two cases, people had joint fluid that leaked but additional surgery with suction drainage took care of it. (Source: Clin Orthop Surg. 2009 Sep;1(3):123-7. Epub 2009 Aug 17.)

Grafting The Tendon Is A Tennis Elbow Surgery Procedure, Too

Grafting the tendon can also be done during surgery. At the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, 24 tendon grafting surgeries were followed up on five years later. All patients reported good or excellent results.

Even when the original tendon was reattached instead of using a graft, the patients had pain relief and returned to normal function. (Source: Am J Orthop (Belle Mead NJ). 2009 Jun;38(6):295-9.)

Now that you know what the doctors are reading in the medical literature, you can speak to them in their language and ask more specific questions.

But really, the best way to approach the whole topic of tennis elbow surgery is to get down to business and start doing tennis elbow exercises, which are very effective.

For best results, start with the ebook, Tennis Elbow Secrets Revealed.

Cortisone injections are often not recommended in people with tennis elbow unless many other treatments have failed.

Cortisone is known for its ability to decrease inflammation in the body, and when it’s injected into the elbow, the pain can be gone for quite a bit of time – sometimes months!

However, natural health practitioners warn those with lateral epicondylitis to think twice before consenting to the injections.

Let’s see what the research says about the matter.

Double-Blind Study Sheds New Light On Cortisone Injections For Tennis Elbow

In The Netherlands, at two Dutch teaching hospitals, researchers found 100 patients with chronic tennis elbow. Fifty-one went into a group that received an injection of something called platelet-rich plasma while the remaining 49 received a cortisone injection.

They recorded pain scores and disability scores for patients before and after the treatment. These researchers really did their work because they followed the patients for 2 full years.

Often in today’s research studies, the scientists don’t want to wait that long! It seems as if there’s a rush to publish their studies!

After two years, the scores were compared and found that both groups improved over time.

Improvement was defined as pain scores at least 25 percent less than original scores and disability score had to be without a reintervention.

Those who received the cortisone injection had the same disability they had initially – two years later and reinterventions.

That study, by the way, was published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine in June of 2011. (Source: Am J Sports Med. 2011 Jun;39(6):1200-8. Epub 2011 Mar 21.)

Now I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a shocker and almost a slap in the face for these cortisone injections. Let’s move on to the next study.

“Lazy” Researchers Still Find Problems With Cortisone Injections

Our next study zips hundreds of miles across the map to the University of Hawaii in Honolulu at the School of Medicine.

Here the researchers didn’t do original research but reviewed what was done in the past.

They found 25 studies that used patients who were human, not animals, had athletic-related injuries, and received corticosteroid treatment.

There were a total of 983 patients in the studies and the researchers wanted to discover what type of complications the athletes suffered from.

Now remember that athletes have the highest metabolism of all adults. All that exercise and cardiac fitness allows them to heal rapidly.

It’s not uncommon for an athlete to take four weeks to heal from a broken bone than six. This is why we all must get out there and move our body more!

What the researchers found was that complications did result:

● Tendon Ruptures
● Fascia Ruptures (this is the connecting tissues)

These were reported commonly in the studies although no specific numbers were given. Stress fractures and death of the bone in multiple areas were also mentioned.

That study was reported in the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine in Sept. 2005 so it’s possible that new research would report the numbers better. (Source: Clin J Sport Med. 2005 Sep;15(5):370-5. )

Still thinking about getting a cortisone injection?

Two Sweden Clinics Get Unexpected Results For Tennis Elbow Sufferers

Let’s zip over mentally to a research clinic in Sweden now where researchers are using corticosteroids in a different way for those with lateral epicondylitis.

They’re using it in something called iontophoresis, which is where a practitioner uses a gel of some sort along with an ultrasound or electrical therapy device that is rubbed over the injured area.

In this case, they used corticosteroid in the gel to treat the tennis elbow of 64 patients.

Half the patients got the cortisone gel while the other half received regular gel without any cortisone. The researchers treated them four times in two weeks.

Well, the results are kind of funny here because most scientists expect to get earth-shattering results. Instead, both groups improved and there wasn’t any significant differences between the groups!

That study was reported in the Scandinavian Journal of Medical Science in Sports in June 2002. (Source: Scand J Med Sci Sports. 2002 Jun;12(3):136-42.)

Doctors Still Determined To Make Cortisone Work

At a different hospital in Sweden, researchers worked with 109 patients with tennis elbow who had had it for about 8 months. This time the patients had corticosteroid injection either with or without anesthetic.

Those who received the steroid both with or without the anesthetic had a specific pattern of results. (Source: Clin Orthop Relat Res. 1995 Jul;(316):99-105.)

Here’s what happened:

a) First, symptoms were relieved by the 14th day.
b) Then at 90 days, there was deterioration and usually a reoccurrence.
c) By the following year, many of the patients had opted for other types of treatment.
d) Patients who had never been treated faired the best of all.

Tennis Elbow Sufferers – Pay Attention To This One

And now let’s mentally zip out to the University of California in Los Angeles right in to the Department of Orthopedic Surgery.

Here the researchers found medical records of 97 patients with lateral epicondylitis and contacted 84 of them who hadn’t had treatment for the past 33 months.

Most patients were about 49 years old.

What they discovered was:

● First of all, 75% of the patients didn’t need surgery.

● Those who had one cortisone injection and it relieved their pain avoided surgery 88% of the time.

● Those who had multiple cortisone injections for tennis elbow only avoided surgery 44% of the time.

This research was published in the American Journal of Orthopedics in August 2001. (Source: Am J Orthop (Belle Mead NJ). 2001 Aug;30(8):642-6.)

So what’s your opinion of cortisone injections for lateral epicondylitis now? Maybe those natural healthcare practitioners had it right all the time.

Using natural methods to help cure your tennis elbow may be the only answer.

Check out Tennis Elbow Secrets Revealed.

You’ll be glad you did.

One of the latest buzzes about treatment for lateral epicondylitis is acupuncture for tennis elbow.

This treatment isn’t a medical treatment although surprisingly, medical doctors are starting to catch on to the fact that acupuncture for tennis elbow really does work.

Many of them are realizing that what they have to offer for lateral epicondylitis isn’t good enough for many patients. Those with tennis elbow get tired of taking medication and not really getting any better.

You see, you can take painkillers to numb the pain but numbing the pain isn’t what you need. You need to go beyond the numbing and get to the finish line that says Healing.

How Acupuncture For Tennis Elbow Became Accepted In The U.S.

About a decade ago, there was a shift in the minds of the general population towards medicine. A significant percentage of the population became willing to try alternative medicine methods, which included acupuncture for tennis elbow.

Medical doctors who treat lateral epicondylitis saw the frustration that their patients had and discovered that they often used other methods when traditional medicine didn’t work.

Then quite a few medical doctors started teaming up with Chinese medical doctors just to learn what it was that could be so effective.

They enrolled in the weekend seminars for doctors to learn the fine art of Chinese acupuncture and among the curriculum was treatment for tennis elbow with acupuncture.

The World Health Organization even decided that the research was so positive about tennis elbow acupuncture that they pronounced the treatment was quite effective, and recommended it.

The WHO still recommends acupuncture treatment to this day.

How Does Acupuncture For Tennis Elbow Work?

Acupuncture theory is quite interesting. To the Chinese, the body is a map of different energy meridians.

Each energy meridian is similar to a road that traverses a city; on each road there are homes, restaurants, and parks.

The meridians of the body lead to bones, muscles, organs and tissues. Thus, the body is a system of interlinking meridians.

Each meridian’s purpose is to brink life flow, or energy to the different parts of the body.

If a meridian develops a roadblock along the way, then the bones, muscles, organs or tissues that are down the road from the block can’t get the energy they need. They start suffering and crying out with symptoms.

What About The Needles?

Acupuncturists then spend time with patients determining where the roadblocks are, and once they find them, it’s possible to use very thin needles to effect a cure.

The needles are very thin, much thinner than a needle the med technologist uses to draw blood. They are inserted about one-fourth of an inch into the specific acupuncture points.

Some needles may be inserted into the elbow muscles for lateral epicondylitis, but there are other areas of the body that also may be used. This is because of that interlocking system of roads in the body.

If one of the highways that you usually take to work is closed down, you go a different route, right? The same thing is true with acupuncture.

Once there’s a blockage detected, then other routes to open up the blockage must be taken. That’s why you could end up with needles stuck in your knee although you are getting treated with tennis elbow acupuncture.

You may even have a few needles inserted into the muscles of your neck. The Chinese have the whole system of acupuncture figured out, and have been using it for 2000+ years.

So don’t worry that you are going to be a human guinea pig that feels like a pin cushion!

The Chinese are pros and have been performing acupuncture longer than medical doctors have been performing medicine!

The fact is that the acupuncture needles don’t hurt, and the most you’ll feel is a slight touch of the needle to your skin.

Acupuncture needles are left inserted into the skin for about 20 minutes, sometimes a half hour. The needles are disposable and never reused again.

When the needle is removed, occasionally there may be a drop of blood but this is pretty unusual if it happens. The needles are so thin that when they enter the body, they rarely pierce a blood vessel.

Should You Try Acupuncture For Tennis Elbow?

Acupuncturists will do a series of sessions for your treatment plan. The treatment plan may last anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 weeks, depending on how your body responds.

You really should try tennis elbow acupuncture. See if the WHO really is recommending the right treatment!

If you’re still a little traditional, you may want to consider doing exercises for tennis elbow. Exercises are often included in rehabilitation plans for those with lateral epicondylitis.

If so, please see the ebook called “Tennis Elbow Secrets Revealed.”

It’s a quick read and the instructions for how to do the exercises is pretty detailed so you can get a headstart on your healing this way.

Check it out!

When you have lateral epicondylitis, you feel that you must do something to relieve the pain and get over this health challenge.

You may have already heard that tennis elbow acupressure is quite effective. This is true.

In fact, the World Health Organization has deemed acupuncture effective for tennis elbow.

They have made this recommendation because the research studies, which have been performed on acupuncture patients with lateral epicondylitis proved that it worked for over 90% of the patients.

This is a high success rate, no matter which way you look at it. And if you think about it, this type of success far exceeds any type of medical treatment for lateral epicondylitis.

The difference between acupuncture for tennis elbow and acupressure for tennis elbow is only one thing: needles.

In acupuncture, thin needles are used to penetrate the skin to get the desired response. In acupressure, no needles are used.

Instead, fingertips are used – yours or someone else’s and the point where the needle would be inserted in acupuncture is the same one where fingertips will press – and hold the point for at least a minute.

How To Do Tennis Elbow Acupressure

Acupressure for tennis elbow is relatively easy to do. The goal is simply to find the right points to press, then press them for a specific amount of time. At least a minute on each point is the required amount of time to hold the point.

You may notice that the point is a little tender. Control the tenderness by how hard you press. Don’t press so hard that you can’t breathe!

Health practitioners use a pain scale to determine where a patient’s pain level is. The scale runs from 0 to 10. Zero is equal to no pain. Ten is equal to the worst pain possible – it’s so bad you want to die.

Obviously you don’t want to kill yourself so don’t press so hard that you hit a 10 on this scale!

Instead, aim for about a five or six. That’s a moderate amount of pain, but not so difficult to experience that you’ll collapse!

The pain is there because of a trigger point, usually, or because of inflammation. When you put pressure on it, the trigger point tends to dissipate. But you must hold it for awhile.

Don’t just expect it to go away because you found it. Acupressure for tennis elbow doesn’t work like that.

What Points You’ll Need To Find For Acupressure For Tennis Elbow

There are several different acupressure points that can be used to treat lateral epicondylitis. Here are the most effective points to treat:

1. Large Intestine 5

Sitting down with your hands on your desk in a praying position, you’ll see that your thumbs are positioned on top of your hands.

Remove the hand on the side of your body that is not affected by tennis elbow.

Now raise your thumb up while leaving the rest of your hand where it is. As you do this, take your free thumb and search for a little depression area at the point where the base of the thumb is – and where it meets the wrist. Save this location!

Another trick to make sure you have the right location is to turn your palm as if you wanted to open your hand to accept a coin put into your palm.

When you do this, a tendon in the elbow crease pops up. That’s the point!

You may want to draw a little circle around it with your pen so you can find it later.

2. Large Intestine 6

First find Large Intestine 5. Then go upward about three inches toward the shoulder up the humerus bone.

That’s where the point is. Mark the spot with your pen so you can find it later.

3. Large Intestine 11

To get to this point, simply go to the Lung 5 point first. Notice that if you follow the elbow crease towards the elbow, you don’t have very far to go.

The Large Intestine 11 point is halfway between Lung 5 and the elbow itself.

This point is also frequently used for hot flashes, high fever, heat stroke, diarrhea with a burning sensation, hives, itchy skin, pain and inflammation. Mark the spot with your pen and you will be able to quickly find it later.

4. Large Intestine 12

Find Large Intestine 11 point first. Then go upward about an inch toward the shoulder.

This is where the point is. Draw a circle around the point so you can find it later.

5. Lung 5

With your hand outstretched and your thumb pointing up to the sky, notice that the skin of your forearm is tanner on the outside and lighter on the underside.

Do you see a line of demarcation between these two regions? Follow the line up to the level of your elbow crease.

When you get to the elbow crease, you have reached the Lung 5 acupuncture or acupressure point. Draw a little circle around it with your pen so you can find it later.

This point is frequently used for those who have swelling in the upper body as well as for tennis elbow.

6. Triple Burner 6

It you’re sitting at your desk, rest your elbow on the desk. Bend your arm so that your fingers and hand are at a 90 degree angle to your elbow and shoulder, as if your forearm is in front of your body.

Triple Burner 6 point is located between the two bones of your forearm three inches above the wrist, close to the thumb side. Mark the point with your pen so you can find it later.

7. Triple Burner 10

Between the 4th and 5th bones in the hand, come straight up the forearm to the elbow crease. At the elbow crease is the point. Draw a circle around the area so you can find it later.

Spending about 10 to 15 minutes a day using tennis elbow acupressure is a good way for you to test the effectiveness of it. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised about the results.

If you’re looking for tennis elbow exercises to do during your tennis elbow rehabilitation, then one of the best ebooks on the topic is Tennis Elbow Secrets Revealed. Find out more about it here.

One of the secrets of those who have overcome their tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis) is massage. You might not have heard this type of tennis elbow treatment mentioned in your protocol of what to do from your doctor.

That’s because medical doctors are concerned with medical treatment and often don’t pay attention to alternative healing suggestions or therapies.

Many physicians feel that what they learned in medical school is enough and only prescribe medications and surgery to heal. They don’t look outside this box very often.

So just because they don’t look outside the box doesn’t mean that you can’t.

After all, you’re the one that has to live with your pain; the doctor doesn’t. And with all due respect to the doctors, they really aren’t thinking about your condition when they go home after 5 p.m. at night.

Why Tennis Elbow Massage Works

The reason why tennis elbow massage is important for you is because of what happens in the body with tendons, ligaments and muscles when these parts of your body move.

If you move a muscle repetitively, that muscle will start to get tired. As a muscle moves, it generates a waste product called lactic acid.

If your body is well tuned and you are in great shape, you can handle a little bit of a lactic acid. But if you aren’t in good shape, then this lactic acid starts to accumulate in the tissues right there within the muscle.

If you were to continue exercising this muscle, more and more lactic acid is pumped out. And then you’ll start to feel a little soft “mass”.

If you continue exercising this muscle without dissipating this lactic acid, then the little soft mass will start to form as a nodule.

Trigger Points Can Be Found In All Parts Of Your Body

What part of your body besides your elbow is hurting? Is it your neck? Your back? Carefully comb the muscles with your fingers and you will probably find these trigger points.

It could take hours to get rid of them all!

But you’re only concerned right now with what’s happening in your tennis elbow.

In some cases where someone hasn’t made time to eliminate this lactic acid, the nodule can become the size of a golf ball! Wow!

When the trigger point becomes this size, then it will hurt to get rid of it! But there is one thing to be happy about: it’s not a tumor!

What You Must Set Out To Accomplish

Your goal is really just to eliminate these trigger points wherever they are! And when you have lateral epicondylitis, your massage for tennis elbow should focus on finding and eliminating these trigger points in your elbow, forearm and wrist.

In fact, those who perform professional massage for tennis elbow may even search for trigger points up in the neck and shoulders. This makes a lot of sense because these trigger points can refer pain to other areas of the body.

A trigger point in the neck can cause pain in your shoulder blade. A trigger point in your elbow can cause pain in your wrist when you pick up a bag of groceries.

Do Your Own Tennis Elbow Massage Therapy!

Now that you understand what is the main goal for you to recover from tennis elbow, you need to know that that goal can be summed up with a few words that are quite memorable:

SEARCH AND DESTROY THEM!

So when you do your own tennis elbow massage therapy, here’s the set of steps you need to overcome your lateral epicondylitis:

Tennis Elbow Massage Therapy, Step-By-Step

1) Begin by pressing on your elbow crease with the thumb of your opposite hand. Search for a spot that feels a little tender.

2) Once you find a tender spot, ask yourself if it is a golf ball shape, a marble shape, a pea shape, or a rope. All these are trigger points.

3) Rejoice that you have located the source of your pain because once you can eliminate it, guess what happens. Your tennis elbow pain starts to fade!

4) Now press in with your thumb into that trigger point. Don’t let it get away from you! Sometimes these trigger points will slip slide around in the tissues so you must be on them like a hound tracking a criminal.

5) You’ll next press harder on the trigger point. How hard you press depends on the amount of pain you have with the pressing.

Consider that there’s a pain scale that exists where 0 is equal to no pain at all and 10 is pain that makes you die because it’s so bad.

Press hard enough to create a pain level of 6 or 7 and no more.

6) Hold that trigger point until it releases itself. In other words, the longer you hold that trigger point, the more you will feel the trigger point give up.

7) After the trigger point gives up, you have won the battle!

But there’s more. Trigger points are never alone. Search and find, and destroy another five today.

Now trigger point therapy is a type of massage. Thus, you are essentially doing your own tennis elbow massage.

What To Do Later After Massage For Tennis Elbow

There’s one more thing you need to know: Afterwards, the area will be a little sore. This soreness may last for a few days but then it will be gone forever.

After a few days, go back in to the area affected by your lateral epicondylitis and do it again.

You will be amazed at how this simple, noninvasive tennis elbow treatment can make the world of a difference in your entire body.

So what are you waiting for? Get busy. Search and destroy the trigger points that are creating your pain.

If you’re looking for some really great tennis elbow exercises, check out the ebook, Tennis Elbow Secrets Revealed.

You’ll be happy that you did.