Treatment for Elbow and Forearm Pain
If you’ve dealt with elbow pain, you know how pesky it is. Picture this common scenario: you are playing golf, swinging the club, and feel a gnawing pain in your elbow and forearm. This goes on for a while, eventually becoming sharper and sharper pain. Now, even movements like opening jars causes pain in your forearm and elbow.
This pattern happens in a lot of different situations. People who lift weights may feel nagging aches and pains in their elbows. Maybe typing at the computer starts to strain your forearm and elbow. Nothing seems to properly relieve the pain, and now you’ve been dealing with it for what seems like months. It didn’t start off that bad, but over time you started to notice it more. Now, it seems to affect you every day.
Good news! This is a common, tendon-related issue, and we know how to get it better. A couple terms to know are “tendonitis” and “epicondylitis”. These terms mean there is inflammation in the tendons around the elbow.
First, it’s important to understand how these conditions develop. The muscles that attach to the elbow travel down your forearm and to your hand. Moving your fingers and wrists require that these forearm muscles contract in specific ways. Trying to grip something? Your forearm muscles are involved. Swinging a tennis racket or brushing a paintbrush? Your forearm muscles are involved. When these muscles and tendons are used over and over again, they become irritated.
That’s not to say you can’t do repetitive motions, but imagine someone typing at a computer for 40 hours each week, and doing this for months or years. Doesn’t it make sense that those muscles get fatigued? If we continue to push these muscles and tendons past their physical limits, we get dysfunction. Dysfunction leads to pain. The pain starts dull and achy–this is the check engine light–and not working to reduce that pain means the tissues are getting more irritated every day.
Chiropractors are trained to deal with tendonitis symptoms. The solution is usually a multi-pronged approach. Chiropractic techniques and tendon releases are used to get the muscles back to their normal tone. If a tendon and muscle have been overworked, they get locked into a pattern where they can’t relax well. We also need to look at what daily activities are aggravating the problem. Depending on where the elbow and forearm pain is occurring, this gives the chiropractor information on what specific motions are the problem. Reducing or adapting those patterns will help the tendon heal. Needle-less acupuncture may also be effective in getting the tendon to heal faster.
Generally, tendonitis issues are stubborn. They take time to heal, partly because of their chronic nature, but chiropractic intervention will greatly speed the process. Not only does the tissue get better faster, but also more completely. We don’t want these issues to resurface. If you are playing sports and dealing with elbow pain, or getting wrist and forearm pain from work, consider reaching out to your local chiropractor for a free consultation. These conditions respond best the earlier you take action.
Our Overland Park chiropractic office offers same-day appointments for new patients, and we do everything we can to get you feeling better as soon as possible!
