Tennis Elbow Which May Happen to Ping Pong Players

How to Get Rid of Your Tennis Elbow Symptoms

The symptoms can be different in each person and greatly vary in severeness. It is thought that almost half of all table tennis players will, at one point in their life, get to deal with this abnormality, but tennis players form only around 5% of all tennis elbow sufferers.

It still isn’t obvious what exactly causes the symptoms, and opinions are divided. Some say it is due to frequent wear and tear of the joints. Others believe it is due to muscles in the wrist or because of a blow to the elbow.

The good news is that there are ways to control the symptoms to experience a reduction in pain level.

What is Tennis Elbow Symptoms:

• Pain at the outside of your elbow that occasionally extends into your forearm and wrist.
• Weakness in the forearm.
• Pain when extending your wrist.
• Pain during specific activities like turning a doorknob or shaking hands.
• Pain that gets worse over weeks or months.
• The inability to hold or lift small objects.

 

What to Do On These Symptoms

When you start noticing tennis elbow symptoms, you should immediately stop doing the activity flaring up your pain and try to rest your elbow. You could apply ice packs to cool down the inflammation and relieve the pain. Take an OTC painkiller or apply cooling gels to the painful area.

A more effective way to deal with the pain that will give you almost immediate relief and longer-term results are a few specific exercises you can do in the comfort of your home.

These exercises focus not only on what triggers the symptoms but also on mobility and strength, thus ensuring that the symptoms won’t return.

When to See a Doctor?

You should see a doctor when your tennis elbow symptoms:

• Continue for a prolonged period
• If your elbow is inflamed and hot
• When you have a fever
• If your elbow does not look right from the outside

Kill the Pain or Cure the Cause?

When we are looking to take away the symptoms, there are two paths we can take. Either treating the symptoms by taking away the pain OR treating the pain’s underlying cause with therapy and more natural approaches.

So which of these two paths should you choose?

Don’t get me wrong. I am the last person to tell you not to grab painkillers if you are in pain. However, I do think you should consider going for therapy. That way, you can cure your tennis elbow symptoms and possibly prevent them from returning.

 Also, consider the side effects both paths have, painkillers, steroid injections, etc., can have quite severe side effects while therapy does not have any side effect. 

Are You Suffering From Tennis Elbow Pain?

Having suffered from such pain myself, I know first hand just how bothersome this nagging pain is. When I started experiencing this pain, my first reaction was to find a way to get rid of the pain instantly.

I did not care about finding a real solution, as long as the pain was gone.

However, having to take painkillers was not very high on my list, so once the pain was gone, I did decide to look around for ways to reduce tennis elbow pain without medication and its side effects. I ran into several solutions people were giving me. Some were good, and some did nothing for me. Read on to find out what finally helped me get rid of my pain.

Immediate Pain Relief

Instead of taking pain killers and waiting for the effect to kick in, there are times that you need IMMEDIATE pain relief! Penetrex can be applied directly to the painful area and, after massaging it in. It will offer fast pain relief and anti-inflammatory aid.

Ways to End the Pain

There are several ways to reduce or end tennis elbow pain. Resting your elbow, forearm, and wrist to ensure you are not aggravating the condition.

Another way to reduce the pain is by applying an ice-pack to the area that hurts most. You can do this several times a day, making sure not to apply the ice pack directly to the bare skin. Commercial ice-packs will come with specific instructions on applying the pack and the maximum amount of time you can apply it. If you don’t have a commercial ice-pack, a bag of frozen pies will do just fine.

If the above methods don’t work to end your pain, your next step will be taking nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Ibuprofen is probably the most known NSAID.

If that still does not work, your doctor will consider injecting cortisone-type medication directly into the sore area, which will do the trick in most severe cases. However, note that some injuries are considered severe and consistent, that only an operation will help.

Fortunately, almost all pain cases can be solved without such an invasive treatment, as long as you take the appropriate action when the pain develops.

Ending Tennis Elbow Pain Through Specific Exercises

You can do several exercises in the comfort of your own home that will reduce the symptoms and even end your pain.

If you feel uncomfortable with taking NSAIDs or if your condition keeps coming back, I would recommend you checking out the exercises that have helped me cure my tennis elbow.

I sure am glad that I no longer need to take medication and finally found the way to control my tennis elbow myself. It has made me a lot more confident, knowing that I cured my condition, and even if it ever pops up again, I can take immediate action to reduce the pain and speed up the healing process.

Find Out What Tennis Elbow Treatment Works

Maybe you have been looking around to find out what treatment works. What I found most striking was that there is a lot of contradictory information available.

Modern-day medicine, unfortunately, focuses on treating the symptoms, while most of the time, the cause is not removed. In the tennis elbow case, this will most likely mean that the moment you stop taking painkillers and go back to work, the pain will return sooner or later.

Before Trying Out Different Tennis Elbow Treatments …

If your elbow does not feel better after a few weeks, make sure you talk with your doctor and have him or her diagnose your problem so that you know what you are dealing with.

Your doctor will probably tell you to give your elbow rest and avoid those repeated twisting motions that make your elbow hurt, or he can prescribe you some medication.

If you start noticing swelling in your elbow or see that it is turning red, you have to see your doctor immediately.

The Most Effective Treatment To Do at Home

Apart from giving your elbow a rest, you can apply an ice pack a few times a day, which will probably take the pain away for a little while. You could also apply painkilling gels that have an anti-inflammatory effect like Ibuleve or take an OTC painkiller.

Treatment by your Doctor

I have found that NonSteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs have improved my symptoms. You can find them in various forms and shapes, like sprays, mousses, and gels to apply topically on the painful area and gently rub them in. You can expect to have some mild side effects like itching, but you are probably happy to get some pain relief.

You can also take oral NSAIDs in the form of tablets, but as you might know, NSAIDs have side effects like stomach pain, diarrhea, and in some cases, even stomach ulcers, so you better have your doctor tell you what would be the best in your situation.

What you need to understand is that these NSAIDs are painkillers. That is all they do, reduce and kill the pain. They won’t be the long-term cure, though, because you are only treating the symptom and not the cause. So you have a higher risk of your symptoms returning once you stop taking the medication.

Invasive Tennis Elbow Treatments

Studies have been done with steroid injections to reduce the pain, and some results have come back positive, taking the pain away for a few weeks.

Treatment That Uses a More Holistic Approach

According to a study performed by Dr. Peter Dorsher, acupuncture can be an effective way of treating tennis elbow. In most patients he has treated during a study, he started seeing positive results:

Focuses on the Cause

After having gone the conventional path of treating my tennis elbow with painkillers and only focusing on the symptoms, I decided it was about time to deal with the underlying cause and see if I could do something that would cure my pain once and for all.

 It meant I had to find out what was causing my pain, and after doing some research, I found that specific tennis elbow exercises could help me take away the cause of my pain.

I needed to do various exercises to trigger point relief, strengthen my muscles, and ensure everything worked the way it should. It not only gave me short term pain relief but also made me tennis elbow free.

Knowing now what I can do to improve my situation and not having to give in to the pain anymore by using medications has impressed me, so I want to share this information with all tennis elbow sufferers out there.

These techniques have done wonders for me, and if you are looking for a way to deal with this pain in the comfort of your own home, you should consider trying them yourself!

 

How Did I Cure My Tennis Elbow?

For years had I struggled with the annoying symptoms of tennis elbow, but only after starting to do some simple exercises at home was I finally able to cure it.

I still remember when I first started noticing pain in my elbow. I thought I had just bumped into it without paying attention to it or that maybe I had twisted it during my sleep, so I was not worried about it. I figured I would wait for the pain to disappear again and continue with life.

Unfortunately, it did not work out that way. It was the beginning of many visits to the doctor and rest my elbow on several occasions, not being allowed to do any lifting or grabbing for days. Apart from the obvious inconvenience, it was pretty annoying, and I felt pretty helpless at times. So after the symptoms had returned yet again, I decided to find a way that would allow me to control the situation again.

I used all different tennis elbow straps and braces, and although they would give me some relief, the symptoms did not disappear completely. Until I talked with a physiotherapist specializing in working with people who suffer from tennis elbow, she told me about tennis exercises that I could do at home to strengthen my forearm muscles. She showed me how to do a few of them, and we went through a few short sessions together so that I could continue doing these at home.

From that point on, I started doing them for a few minutes each day. They helped me cure my symptoms, and I decided to pass the word on so that people in the same situation I was in a few years ago can also find relief.

Why Cure It If I Do Not Play Table Tennis?

Seeing that I do not play table tennis at present and have not played it for at least 20 years, I never thought about my pain symptoms being due to tennis elbow. I also never thought I would have to struggle to cure it.

Now I have to admit that I am not a big fan of taking pain medication or any medication, so I just stubbornly bit through the sour apple and endured the pain. However, I did start to rest my elbow in positions the pain would not be very noticeable.

At first, that seemed to work, but the pain started becoming more nagging and more present when doing everyday stuff after a while.

Still not wanting to reside to painkillers but aware that I should take action, I decided to find out why I was hurting.

I Found a Way to Cure It

That is right!

After learning more about this condition, the symptoms, the different treatments, and just what happens when you experience tennis elbow pain, I preferred learning some techniques to reduce the pain instead of residing to pain killers.

You see, I am a massage therapist for horses, and in my industry, it is very common to go for painkillers and cortisone injections whenever a horse shows signs of pain, instead of locating the underlying issue and working on it to solve it completely.

It was out of frustration towards treating problems in animals that I decided to train and become a massage therapist. Because of this background, I was able to find a suitable treatment plan to cure my tennis elbow instead of just masking the symptoms.

How Did I Finally Cure My Tennis Elbow?

I applied the same approach to my problem as I would use when applying massage and stretching techniques to horses. Now, this might sound weird to you, but if you come to think of it, muscles, bones, and joints are the same whether they are human or belonging to a horse.

The same theories apply to the same type of structures and tissue. Okay, so maybe the shape is not the same nor the movements, but the foundation is the same.

So I figured I should look for an approach that would reduce the pain and offer me a long-term solution without having to reside to painkillers.

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