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Cosmetic SiteTennis Elbow
What is Tennis Elbow?
Tennis Elbow (lateral epicondylitis) is due to an inflammation at the point where one of the wrist extensor tendons attaches to the bone of the elbow. As that tendon becomes inflamed it in turn irritates the adjacent nerve (radial nerve) and causes the intense pain that is often felt al the way down into the wrist and up into the shoulder.
What are the treatment options?
Tennis elbow is localized to the area where the extensor muscle is attached to the lateral epicondyle.
Medical management of tennis elbow includes the use of a tennis elbow strap to support the inflamed tendon, anti-inflammatory medications, and activity restriction. The activities that usually aggravate tennis elbow are forceful or repetitive wrist extension or wrist rotation like the motion of using a screwdriver. If this first step does not improve the pain, then cortisone injection is a common second step and is highly successful if performed within the first six weeks of symptom onset.
If conservative therapy is unsuccessful then surgery is the best final option. Until recently surgical results with tennis elbow were poor and unpredictable. With recent changes in surgical technique adopted by our group, success rates in tennis elbow approach 90 percent.
Surgery is done under general anesthetic, takes approximately one hour, and is done as an outpatient. Recovery for tennis elbow surgery is very prolonged because we have found it is the one surgery where pain is not a gain. We warn all of our patients to expect at least three months recovery before full, unrestricted activity is allowed. The first month is usually only motion exercises to prevent stiffness, the second month begins stretching and strengthening exercises, and the third month is usually spent on work hardening. Most of our patients are able to return to their original jobs, though job modification is a smart move to prevent recurrence.