Tennis Elbow, a Terminal Illness?
This is the WeChat chat record between Dr. Xie and a good friend. He has been suffering from tennis elbow for nearly half a year, and the relief is not obvious. So why is Dr. Xie? Reply jokingly when will he hold the banquet, please take a look at his experience:
Friend’s medical history
Dr. Xie’s friend met at the gym, especially likes playing badminton, and exercising every day, it can be said that it is a day If you don’t exercise, you will feel uncomfortable. Friends who like to play badminton must have this feeling, but they are not addicted to playing. If they are not sweating, they feel that they are not exercising. Therefore, his daily amount of exercise should be at least about two hours.
He started to have elbow pain half a year ago, which is very common among sports people, especially in Badminton, Tennis sports. Because to repeatedly swing the racket, it is necessary to repeatedly use the forearm muscles, so the stimulation to the elbow joint is relatively large, and the location of his pain, the radius of the elbow joint Lateral, this position is the insertion point of the extensor muscle group, the pain that occurs in this position, we call it lateral epicondylitis, familiar friends may know , this problem is known as tennis elbow.
At that time, Dr. Xie advised him to minimize the stimulation of exercise as much as possible, and use a little anti-inflammatory analgesics appropriately to control the pain, and rest as a priority. The cornerstone, stop stimulating the affected muscle groups, wait for the symptoms to disappear, and gradually resume exercise according to your symptoms.
At that time, he replied with one word: “Oh!”
We can read between the lines that he is dissatisfied because the doctors have not provided him with a quick way to recover quickly and get back on the sports field quickly /strong>.
He may even think in his heart: “What about the doctor, it’s nothing, I can’t cure this little problem quickly!”, just because Emotions are not spoken.
In the days after that, I can still see each other often in the gym. Every time I see him, he is sweating like rain and looks very happy, but after a while, I will send you a WeChat message and tell him about him. How painful is the elbow joint, how much does it affect his performance, is there a good way, and is there any “special medicine” that can relieve him quickly?
Dr. Xie’s suggestion has not changed. He repeatedly advised him to rest for a while, and slowly, because he could not meet his needs, he stopped contacting him.
No, I did it again today, and said the word “terminally ill”! It shows that his pain must have been very serious, and it can no longer be relieved by simple measures, and it has seriously affected his sports performance, so he made such a sigh.
So, is tennis elbow really that bad and difficult to treat? Let’s talk about this!
Tennis Elbow Treatment
●Why do I get tennis elbow? As I have briefly told you before, the position of the lateral epicondyle of our humerus is the fulcrum of many muscles. If we use these muscles excessively, it may stimulate the connection between the tendon and the bone, resulting in Strain in this area, resulting in pain. Previous studies believed that inflammation accounted for the main role, but now it is believed that strain injury is the main cause.
So the most common people for tennis elbow are people who overuse their forearms and wrists, such as people who need to write for long hours, people who are sports, people who need to type for a long time on the keyboard and Students are very common.
●Rest and reduce Eating is the most important part of treatment. After understanding the cause of tennis elbow, everyone should understand that removing the cause is a very important treatment measure, so how to remove it? In fact, it is to rest and reduce the stimulation of this part.
Actually Dr. Xie himself was also a tennis elbow patient. The main reason is that he spent a period of time studying, writing papers, and using computers for a long time. After a long time typing on the keyboard, the symptoms were caused, and the pain in the elbow joint was obvious, and I didn’t dare to twist the towel.
And my disposal is to to completely reduce the use of the keyboard at the first time, and to find an alternative method, and finally through speech recognition The solution, using software to solve the problem of typing by hand, and then slowly taking medication, the symptoms disappeared.
In clinical practice, many patients cannot do this at all. Just like the friend mentioned in the article, he feels that there is no fun in life without playing, so he would rather endure local pain and still have to do If you exercise for a long time, the result will be more and more severe injuries, then the problem may be difficult to alleviate. When the problem is delayed for too long, it is really difficult to solve it.
●How to take medicine? When we have tennis, and the elbow has pain in the lateral epicondyle of the humerus, then topical medicine plays the best role, because the position of tennis elbow is relatively superficial, and topical medicine can Penetrates well into the tissue in question and achieves its effect, like diclofenac diethylamine emulsion or flurbiprofen gel is great choose.
Oral medicine is not recommended personally, because taking the medicine for a long time is likely to cause irritation to the gastric mucosa, and may also increase the risk of high blood pressure and abnormal blood coagulation function.
●Physical Therapy. If you have tennis elbow pain for a relatively long time, for about a month, then you may consider Shockwave therapy, which is currently a very effective treatment for tennis elbow This equipment can be found in rehabilitation and pain departments in major hospitals.
If symptoms are mild, kinesiotherapy can also be used.
Elbow pads can also be used for people with pain. Professional elbow pads for lateral epicondylitis can help us lower the connection between tendons and bones stress relieves symptoms.
●When is it closed? Occlusion therapy is indicated, and it is recommended that patients should be considered for closure therapy after systematic rest and conservative treatment for about two months without effect. Blocking therapy is an invasive treatment method, which has the risk of infection and the risk of tendon rupture. Although some patients can get good treatment results after blockade therapy, they may have repeated attacks, and the time of each blockade may be repeated. It will gradually shorten, which we do not want to see.
● Rehabilitation exercises. On the basis of rest, rehabilitation exercises are two important measures for the treatment of tennis elbow. , to reduce the tension between muscles and bones, whether it is rest or rehabilitation exercise, we need to stick to it for a period of time. These two measures cannot take effect quickly, and it takes time to accumulate to achieve the therapeutic effect.
The picture below is a more classic stretching of the forearm muscles, each stretch for 15~20 seconds, 5-15 times as a group, do 2 times a day~3 groups, which can help us relieve symptoms very well.
●Surgical treatment. Only a very small number of patients with severe lateral epicondylitis are considered for surgical treatment after various treatments have failed. This is not the first choice of treatment, because the effect of surgery on this chronic strain is often not particularly good.
The above measures must be based on rest and rehabilitation exercises, and must be combined with one or several treatment methods to slowly control the problem, which takes time
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Summary
In fact, tennis elbow is a very common orthopedic disease caused by chronic strain.
Rest and rehabilitation exercises are the cornerstones of treating this problem, but this is often not done by many people, and people often have various reasons, such as I Busy, eg I’m interested and can’t give up, eg I’m going to a competition, etc. to make excuses for myself, often trying to find a quick way to Help yourself to solve the problem.
But everyone should know that there are some chronic diseases that we have to treat slowly, such as lateral epicondylitis or medial epicondylitis. Diseases are often formed due to long-term chronic cumulative damage. If a quick method is adopted, such as closed treatment without systematic treatment in the early stage, it is very likely that the symptoms will be prolonged and recurring, leading to local symptoms. Adhesion, infection, and even tendon rupture are not uncommon in clinical practice.
It is often said that haste is not enough. This sentence is also suitable for many chronic orthopaedic diseases.
Tennis elbow is not a “terminal illness”. Take a good rest in the early stage of the disease, reduce the stimulation of the elbow muscles, reduce pain-inducing movements, insist on rehabilitation exercises, take appropriate medicines, and choose appropriately Some physical therapy measures can achieve good therapeutic effect.
It’s just that many people don’t like this measure, or they can’t take a break from life, and as a result, the problem accumulates and becomes more serious.
Hopefully this article has given you a new perspective on chronic strain conditions like tennis elbow, golfer’s elbow, and others. If you have other doubts, please leave a message below the article, and we will discuss it together.
I am Xie Xinhui, who insists on explaining the knowledge of complex diseases in simple language. It is not easy to code words. If you agree with our point of view, please help to follow or like it. Or if your family and friends are also troubled by this, please forward this article to those who need itlet them reallylearn how to face tennis elbow, thank you !
