Elbow pain doctor what kind

This could give you some short-term relief so you can start rehab exercises. But in the long term, having the corticosteroid shot may not help any more than not having it. Surgery is seldom needed for tennis elbow. Health Tools help you make wise health decisions or take action to improve your health.

Overuse of the forearm muscles using a repeated twisting motion is the most common cause of tennis elbow. These movements are common to various jobs, such as carpentry or plumbing, and to many daily activities, such as yard work and lifting objects. Racquet sports, swimming, and throwing sports such as baseball can also lead to tennis elbow. Tennis elbow symptoms usually begin gradually. The main symptom is pain, which may begin with a dull aching or soreness on the outer part of the elbow that goes away within 24 hours after an activity.

As time goes on, it may take longer for the pain to go away. The condition may further progress to pain with any movement, even during everyday activities, such as lifting a jug of milk. Pain may spread to the hand, wrist, other parts of the arm, shoulder, or neck.

Other parts of the arm, shoulder, and neck may also become sore or painful as the body tries to make up for the loss of elbow movement and strength.

Swelling rarely occurs with tennis elbow. If your elbow is swollen, you may have another type of condition, such as arthritis. Radial tunnel syndrome is an unusual type of nerve entrapment that is sometimes confused with or can develop at the same time as tennis elbow. Tennis elbow pain is a symptom of tendon injury. Overuse or stress can cause microtears in the tendon. This usually occurs because of repetitive motions of the arm or wrist.

The longer you use an injured tendon, the more damaged it becomes. The most common symptom of tennis elbow is pain on the outside of the elbow. Given enough rest, the tendon can mend on its own. But if you continue the activity, the weakened tendon may become more vulnerable to tear or rupture from a sudden accidental blow, fall, or forceful movement. With early rest and treatment, an injured tendon is likely to heal with minimal scar tissue and maximum strength.

While a recent, mild tendon injury might need a few weeks of rest to heal, a severely damaged tendon can take months to mend. If you think that your workplace activity is causing elbow pain or soreness, talk to your human resources department for information on other ways of doing your job, equipment changes, or other job assignments.

For more information, see the topic Office Ergonomics. Call your doctor now if you had an injury to your elbow and:. Watchful waiting is a wait-and-see approach. You and your doctor watch your symptoms to see if your health improves on its own.

If it does, no treatment is needed. If your symptoms don't get better or they get worse, then it's time to take the next treatment step.

Home treatment often helps mild tennis elbow pain. You may want to try resting the elbow and applying ice or heat several times a day for 1 to 2 weeks before you call your doctor. Your doctor can usually determine if you have tennis elbow by talking to you about the history of your symptoms, daily activities, and past injuries. You'll have a physical exam too.

X-rays aren't usually needed for diagnosis of tennis elbow but can sometimes rule out other causes of elbow pain, such as arthritis, signs of another type of injury, or a buildup of calcium crystals in a tendon or ligament. X-rays can show unusual bone structure that might cause soft-tissue damage such as to tendons or muscles , but they don't show soft tissues very clearly.

If your elbow pain isn't severe and can't be linked to a specific injury, your doctor may recommend starting treatment without doing X-rays to see whether the problem clears up in a few weeks. If nonsurgical treatment such as rest, the use of ice and anti-inflammatory drugs, rehabilitation exercises, and changing or stopping certain activities hasn't helped relieve elbow pain, or if the diagnosis is unclear, other tests may be helpful. If your doctor thinks you have nerve damage, electromyogram and nerve conduction tests can check how well your nerves are working.

Tennis elbow treatment is most often successful. The most important part of treatment is tendon rest. A long rest from aggravating activity allows the small tears in the tendon to heal. Depending on how severe your condition is, you may need to rest your tendon for weeks to months. Surgery is a last resort if other treatment isn't helpful.

Treatment for tennis elbow works best when it starts as soon as symptoms appear. If your condition is just starting, rest may be all you need. But in most cases, more treatment is needed to protect and heal the tendon. Wrist and elbow splints can be used in the treatment of tennis elbow. Splints are sometimes helpful for other bone, joint, and tendon problems. But splints have not been shown to help with pain or recovery for tennis elbow injuries.

Over the first months of recovery from tennis elbow, continue your initial treatment and begin:. The longer you continue activity that harms the tendon after tennis elbow symptoms begin, the longer rehab will take. This ongoing activity can cause severe tendon damage and may someday require surgery. If your symptoms don't go away, your doctor may suggest:. Your treatment choices will depend in part on whether elbow pain affects your job or daily life.

It also depends on whether you are willing or able to change habits or activities that are causing your elbow pain. Nonsurgical treatment is usually started if the injury is:. Most cases of tennis elbow respond to rest, ice, rehab exercises, pain medicine, and counterforce braces. This injury does take from 6 months to 12 months to heal. Patience helps. Surgery is considered as a last resort when all other nonsurgical treatments have failed.

You may be referred for surgery if:. In as many as 9 out of 10 people who have tennis elbow, symptoms go away and the people can return to their normal activities whether they have had surgery or not.

The best way to prevent tennis elbow is to stretch and strengthen your arm muscles so that they are flexible and strong enough for your activities.

If you feel that certain activities at your job are causing elbow pain or soreness, talk to your human resources department for information on other ways of doing your job.

They can help with changes to equipment or other job assignments. Consider taking lessons to learn the proper technique for sports, such as tennis and golf, that require grasping and twisting motions in the arm.

Have a sports trainer or a person who is familiar with sports equipment check yours to make sure it suits your level of ability, body size, and body strength. In daily routines or hobbies, look for activities that use repeated arm movements that strain your fingers, wrist, or forearm, such as in gardening, cooking, or playing musical instruments.

Train yourself to use techniques that won't stress your elbow. For example, when you lift objects, lift with the palm of your hand facing upwards. If you have tennis elbow, follow these simple steps to reduce pain and start tendon healing.

A rehab program such as this will prevent further injury by making your arm muscles stronger. Along with tendon rest, people often use medicine to treat tennis elbow.

Medicine can help with pain and relieve or reduce swelling. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs NSAIDs , including aspirin such as Bayer , ibuprofen such as Advil , or naproxen such as Aleve , are the most commonly used medicines for treating tennis elbow.

NSAIDs are available with or without a prescription. NSAIDs come in pills and in a cream that you rub over the sore area. Acetaminophen such as Tylenol can also help with pain. Be safe with medicines. Read and follow all instructions on the label.

Your doctor may suggest corticosteroid injections shots if you are still in pain after at least 6 to 8 weeks of tendon rest and rehab. Corticosteroids are a class of powerful anti-inflammatory medicine.

Even though inflammation isn't usually present in long-term chronic tennis elbow, corticosteroid shots may ease elbow pain for a short time. But in the long term, having the steroid shot may not help any more than not having it. But they can reduce pain and give you enough relief to start rehab.

Most cases of tennis elbow are treated without surgery. Less than 5 out of cases require surgery. Your doctor may suggest that you try a corticosteroid injection before you think about surgery. A steroid shot may help ease elbow pain for a short time. But over the long term, having the steroid shot may not help any more than not having it. During surgery, a doctor will most likely cut release the tendon, remove damaged tissue from the tendon, or both.

In some cases, tendon tears can be repaired. After surgery, rehab is needed to restore flexibility and strength in the forearm. Surgery for tennis elbow involves cutting releasing the tendon and removing damaged tissue from the tendon. In some cases, tendon tears are repairable reattached if the repair can be done without overtightening the tendon.

These procedures can be done both arthroscopically and through a larger incision open surgery or with a combination of the two techniques. There are different approaches to surgery for tennis elbow, such as where to enter the elbow and what type of reconstruction or repair on the tendon is done.

Surgical technique is determined by the type, location, and severity of the injury and by the doctor's preference and experience.

There is no strong medical research that shows that one type of surgery is better than another or that surgery is better than other treatment. The success of surgery depends in large part on the amount of time and effort you put into a rehab program. Other treatment for tennis elbow pain includes physical rehabilitation rehab , acupuncture, topical nitric oxide, shock wave therapy, and transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation TENS. Physical rehab is combined with tendon rest to restore flexibility and build muscle strength.

Rehab is needed after surgery too. A physical rehab program not only helps heal injured tendons and muscles but also helps prevent further injury. Physical rehab combined with tendon rest is the main tennis elbow treatment. Without a healthy elbow, you would experience pain and mobility issues every time you used your arm. Unfortunately, the elbow can succumb to a variety of injuries and conditions, such as fractures, wear and tear injuries, and arthritis pain.

Although elbow pain can be frustrating, it is usually short-term and not a cause for concern. Sometimes, however, elbow pain can indicate a more serious or underlying condition that requires further investigation and treatment from a doctor. The elbow allows rotational movement and the ability to flex and extend your hand and forearm. It is a complex joint in which the humerus upper arm bone meets the ulna and the radius the bones in the forearm and forms a hinge joint.

If the elbow joint gets damaged or injured, it can lead to symptoms such as pain, swelling, numbness, tingling, weakness, and can limit your range of motion. Most of the time, a minor elbow injury requires rest and ice therapy. This is often enough to heal the internal damage and make your elbow feel good as new. It is advisable to seek a diagnosis and treatment from an orthopedic doctor if:.

Some symptoms can indicate a serious condition, such as a fracture or dislocated elbow, which requires urgent treatment. Jobs that involve repetitive motions like manufacturing and construction are at risk of injury as well. You could even experience trauma from an accident or slip-and-fall. An orthopedic sports medicine doctor or hand and upper extremity specialist may be able to offer treatment for your elbow pain.

These orthopedists subspecialize, gaining an additional year of training in specific joint injuries and conditions. Subspecialized orthopedic surgeons should be able to offer the most advanced treatment options for your condition. Overuse is one cause of UCL tears.

UCL tears are common in baseball due to the nature of overusing the elbow by throwing pitches each game. Along with overuse from large pitch counts and innings pitched, an emphasis on throwing harder to increase velocity may lead to injury. UCL tears can also occur due to trauma, but overuse in sports or other activities tends to be the leading cause of this elbow injury. Minor UCL tears may only require rest or ice. Other tears can be repaired with medication or a physical therapy program.

More severe cases of UCL tear will require surgery. Tommy John surgery , or UCL reconstruction, is one of the most famous procedures in sports. Repetition and forearm stress can damage your tendon. Some sports, like tennis, can increase your likelihood of developing tennis elbow. Nonsurgical treatment for tennis elbow is often effective. A sports medicine specialist may recommend rest or limiting certain activities.

Injections and physical therapy are other nonsurgical treatment options for tennis elbow. While rare, some cases of tennis elbow do require surgery. In this circumstance, an elbow specialist creates a small incision and reattaches the tendon.

Overuse and repetitive motions may lead to cubital tunnel syndrome. Pressure on the ulnar nerve is another potential cause for this condition. Sometimes the condition may heal on its own, but you should plan for that to not be the case. If left untreated, cubital tunnel syndrome can cause permanent damage to your elbow.

An elbow doctor may be able to treat this condition without surgery.