How Massage, Remedial Massage & Myotherapy Helps Elbow Pain
Elbow pain is relatively common. In saying that it can still vary from mild to very severe pain. To be honest, I don’t think people realise how much use your elbow area gets throughout the day. That is, until there is pain!
Although the elbow is a relatively stable joint, things can go wrong. This is usually due to overuse or repetitive strain.
There are 2 elbow injuries that make up over 90% of the elbow pain presentations we see in clinic. The advantage here, is that we work with it all the time an know how to get you results. These are lateral & medial elbow epicondylitis in much simpler terms, tennis or golfers elbow.
Everyone has heard of golfers/tennis elbow, but do you know what causes it? Hint: very rarely is it playing golf and tennis.
What is Tennis or Golfers Elbow?
Golfers and tennis elbow are repetitive strain injuries that occur on either side of the elbow. It occurs at the epicondyle. A small bony landmark where the wrist flexors and extensors (forearm muscles) insert into the elbow. In this case the inner epicondyle being golfers elbow, and outer being tennis elbow.
So, these conditions often have no correspondence to actually playing the sport. The name is simply based off a potential cause being common movements in the game. As a matter of fact, they are the same condition just on opposite sides of the arm. They are caused by opposite actions.
Things such as over stretching, overuse and overloading the tendon connecting the forearm muscles to the bone, are common contributors to tennis or golfers elbow. This is because the point of irritation where these muscles originate from the bone.. Basically, it causes the tendon to constantly pull and irritate this area.
Most commonly a repetitive strain injury, tennis or golfers elbow can also be caused my sudden impact or trauma. This condition can cause localised swelling, pain on loaded movement, dull/aching/burning/sharp pain on elbow at point of insertion, elbow stiffness, wrist and head weakness, possible numbness/tingling in the fingers.
Finally, and luckily for suffers, massage is extremely beneficial for these types of conditions
How Massage, Remedial Massage & Myotherapy Can Help Golfers & Tennis Elbow
As with all repetitive strain injuries, prevention is better than a cure.
But, if you’re already showing what you think are signs and symptoms of tennis or golfers elbow here’s how we can help:
- An assessment to see if that is the most likely cause of your elbow pain
- Remedial Massage or myotherapy treatment to the affected muscles. When these are tight constant pressure is placed on the site or irritation. This causes pain and we think, slower healing.
- Advice on gentle exercises for flexibility, pain reduction and to bring back strength into a weakened muscle.
- Also Massage therapy to release tight muscles all the way up the arm, into the shoulder and wherever else you need
- Dry needling is one of the most effective ways as it targets specific areas of the muscles. We find dry needling extremely effective for both tennis & golfers elbow.
- Finally, advice on bracing. This is where we can help reduce load through the tendon to optimise the healing environment
In summary, we get fantastic results using remedial massage & myotherapy to help people with tennis elbow. If you’re thinking this may be the cause of your elbow pain, book an appointment below.
Or, for more details on our Healesville massage, remedial massage & myotherapy clinic follow this link.
Disclaimer:
At Rapid Recovery Clinic we’ve put together this article as a way to give back to our industry. For clients, potential clients, GP’s & other allied health professionals to gain a better understanding of how massage, myotherapy & remedial massage can help elbow pain.
Everything in this article is the views of the author and what they have found to be the case in their clinical practice. This information is intended only as a guide. It is up to you to seek your own independent medical advice for your individual circumstances & elbow pain
Our Healesville Clinic offers: