Saving Your Backhand: Treating and Avoiding Tennis Elbow
If it hurts to shake hands, hold a cup of coffee, or even turn a doorknob, you could have tennis elbow. Despite its name, tennis elbow tends to affect a variety of people, mainly those with jobs that require overuse of the same muscles or similar repetitive motion, such as painters, plumbers, carpenters, construction workers, and butchers.
The RICE Technique
The pain is caused by the repetitive contraction of your forearm muscles used to straighten and raise your wrists and hands. This motion eventually causes stress on those muscles, resulting in tiny tears in the tendons that extend from your forearm to your elbow.
You can treat tennis elbow by using the RICE technique:
- Rest
- Ice
- Compression
- Elevation
You can also take over the counter pain relievers like ibuprofen and acetaminophen to help reduce irritation and inflammation.
If your tennis elbow is especially irritating or it keeps coming back, it’s time to seek medical treatment. Your FastMed medical professional can show you exercises to gradually stretch and strengthen your muscles in your forearm in order to provide you with some relief and prevent future bouts of overuse. He or she may also refer you to a physical therapist who can prescribe another set of exercises as well as show you proper form or may recommend special braces that can provide you with relief.
FastMed has extended hours during the week and even on weekends and holidays. We are an affordable alternative to the ER for non-life-threatening conditions. It is our mission is to serve our communities and patients with a high level of quality, personal care, affordable and convenient urgent care, family practice, and other specialty medicine services.
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