Tennis elbow has a funny name for something so many golfers and pickleball players end up with. In Sun Lakes, we hear about it from people who play three mornings a week, from folks who just spent a weekend pruning the citrus trees, and from plenty who can’t think of any reason at all. The outside of the elbow gets sore. Then shaking hands, lifting a skillet, or turning a key starts to sting. Most people try a strap from the drugstore and some ibuprofen first, and when that doesn’t work after a month or two, they start looking for a clinic nearby.
What Good Care Should Include
There isn’t one right clinic for everybody. But some things are worth looking for, wherever you go:
- Someone who examines the elbow, wrist, and grip instead of just handing you a brochure
- A plan built around strengthening the tendon, since rest alone rarely fixes it for good
- Questions about your swing, your paddle or club grip, and what you do around the house
- Honest talk about injections, including when they make sense and when they don’t
- Follow-up visits to check your progress and change the plan if it isn’t working
Being close to home matters too. Tennis elbow usually takes a few weeks of steady work, and that’s a lot easier when you aren’t spending half the day in the car getting to appointments.
Questions Worth Asking Before You Book
It’s fair to ask a clinic how they usually treat tennis elbow. If the answer is only a shot or only rest, keep asking. You can also ask whether they’ll teach you exercises to do at home and how often they’d want to see you. A good clinic won’t mind the questions at all, and the answers tell you a lot about how they work.
What Treatment Looks Like Here
At our clinic, the first visit is mostly about figuring out what’s going on. We’ll press along the elbow and forearm, test your grip, and have you push against resistance in a few directions to see what brings the pain on. Sometimes the problem turns out to be coming from the neck, or it’s actually golfer’s elbow on the inside of the arm, so we check for those too.
Then we get the tendon working again. You’ll do slow wrist exercises with a light weight, lowering it down over a few seconds, and we’ll add forearm and shoulder strength as the pain allows. We’ll look at your grip size and how you swing, and we’ll show you easier ways to carry groceries or lift a pan. If the pain keeps flaring despite all of that, we can talk about an injection to quiet it down while the exercises do their job.
When your elbow has been bothering you longer than it should, call Modern Medicine of Sun Lakes, AZ. We’ll take a close look and help you get back to the courts and the course.
