Tennis Elbow-Oh the pain

I have tried everything and my tennis elbow is finally going away. I hope. I have scowered the web for info, talked to lots of people and intend to post all my research so that I can help someone else that gets tennis elbow can use my experience to hopefully avoid enduring the pain I received from playing tennis. First off there are all kinds of info but I could never get what seemed like consistent info about tennis elbow. If you have it, you know it. It's a pain on the outside of your elbow running from the forearm. Gripping with the hand of your bad elbow causes pain. Everybody says that the best thing to do is to rest your arm, but hey I just love playing tennis and couldn't bring myself to totally stop so I just limped though the pain. It seems like I could play through the pain a bit but when I was done, the next morning it was killer. It seemed like it would never go away.

I got conflicting info regarding using heat and ice. a tennis pro said to heat it under the shower. A chiropractor told me to only use ice. Sure, but where do you ice it? I was told to ice it where the pain is. For me that was right on the sore area of the elbow but I tried icing the forearm as well. What worked best is to ice it right after playing. I actually put an ice bag (Walmart-about $4.00) filled with ice before playing and then put my elbow on it when driving home. ( I know, I know, I should not have been playing- Resting the elbow is the best thing you can do for it because it is a tear in the tendons of your elbow that need to heal)

Ibubrofen- I tried Motrin and all kinds of generic Ibuprofen but had the best luck when a friend recommended Advil.

Braces- I've got more tennis elbow stuff in my bag than actual tennis gear. I've bought just about every kind of elbow brace and support you can get.

Post your comments.

Add your own your own comments, tips and suggestions for tennis elbow. Click on the comments link below the posts.