Arm Muscles
Golfer's & Tennis Elbow
Pitchers Elbow
The Golfer's Elbow on the back of your elbow is a symptom of another injury happening to your elbow.
Yes, you want to get rid of the pain but you must also correct the underlying issue or the Golfer's Elbow will return.
When it comes to treating a Golfer's Elbow, there's a lot of bad advice on the internet. Stretching, Elastic Bands and Cortisone injections are not the solutions!
There are a million companies selling bands and compression wraps for you to wear all the time. Companies like Amazon sell them because they can, not because they help. What does Amazon know about treating injuries? Nothing. If they can sell it, they sell it, and that's it. Honestly, wearing tight elastic bands around your joints all day long is a recipe for more damage to your elbow. Squeezing your tendons and your ligaments and the parts of your joint so they rub against each other when you move is going to lead to damaged tendons and ligaments. Guaranteed. Yes, compression can help squeeze the synovial fluid back into the elbow joint - but only do that when you are at rest! And only do it for 15 to 30 minutes at a time. Definitely not all day long, and definitely not when you are active. If you want support for your injury, tape it. Tape over it, not around it so your joint is getting squeezed.
People first notice their Golfer's Elbow for the first time when they are being active. Then they mistakenly think that activity is the reason for the pain. But the reality is that most Golfer's Elbow is the result of Isometric Strain or a One-Time Injury. Isometric strain is a fancy term that means you held your elbow or wrist under pressure for a long time in one position without moving it. That's the exact opposite of repetitive motion! The pressure of the constant strain often damages elbows but you don't realize it when it's happening. That's a signficant cause of Golfer's Elbow. One-time injuries are the other main cause. Repetitive strain may just be preventing proper healing. Check out our Causes of Golfer's Elbow page for the full story.
Cortisone injections are designed to temporarily relieve pain and swelling, however, they come with a variety of risks and side effects.
These include skin discoloration, allergic reaction, infection, and nerve damage.
They're also associated with tendon rupture.
Cortisone shots are not designed to heal the injury.
They simply mask the pain and can cause you to feel a false sense of ability, leading to a higher likelihood of re-injury.
If the cortisone shot is not administered properly, there's a chance that it won't have any effect.
Some people are also unable to metabolize cortisone, meaning it would not provide them with any relief.
Cortisone contributes to the thinning of tissue and an increase in the likelihood of a tendon rupture in your elbow as a result!
Please visit our Cortisone Shots page for more information on the potential dangers of cortisone.
Surgery is not actually required in order to heal most soft tissue injuries. Injured tissue can be healed without surgery in the majority of cases. If your diagnosis is 'Golfer's Elbow', the truth is that the doctor might not even see the damaged tissue.
If the doctor can identify damaged tissue to do surgery on, they will classify the injury using a different name entirely. (And that name is not Medial Epicondylitis either). Check out our Causes of Golfer's Elbow page for the full story.
Elbow surgery should be avoided as much as possible and if you do go this route, pick your surgeon very carefully. Definitely, get more than one opinion. There are many risks and complications associated with surgery, including nerve damage, infection, tendon rupture, and more. There is also no guarantee that it will get rid of the problem for good.
If you do undergo surgery, you can still use our BFST® and ColdCure® products beforehand to help prepare your body, and after the procedure to accelerate your recovery. Always get a second opinion before signing up for elbow surgery.
A TENS machine does not stimulate blood flow. TENS is an acronym that means Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation. What a TENS machine is designed to do, is overstimulate the nerves to relieve pain - it deadens the nerves. While you want to reduce pain from your injury, using a TENS machine over an injury is highly not recommended. Having your muscles pulse and flex uncontrolled will cause further tissue damage and slow down healing. It is an important part of injury recovery, to feel the pain, and respect the pain. Pain is going to tell you when you're potentially causing further damage. Never mask the pain heading into any activity. TENS does NOT HEAL ANY INJURY.
Check out our Treatment of Golfer's Elbow page for effective solutions.
The purpose of physiotherapy is to help with strengthening the muscles surrounding your injury once the healing process is underway. Starting physiotherapy before your injury has had a chance to start healing and stabilize, will only cause further damage and more pain. After being inactive for an extended period of time, you get muscle atrophy (weakened muscles). As your injury heals, physiotherapy can be an excellent resource to help you rebuild that lost muscle. Just remember, your physiotherapist cannot feel what you feel. If you feel pain during physio or afterwards advocate for yourself. Physio should not hurt. You need to work within your pain limits. If an exercise hurts, you need to stop that exercise because you're not ready yet. As you heal you will be able to do more, but do not push yourself because this will only cause re-injury. This is true throughout your entire elbow recovery. Always respect the pain.
Rest is very important when recovering from an injury.
Of course, too much rest can cause weak and stiff muscles, but resting when you can will help you avoid further injury.
While it is true that moving promotes blood flow, and in turn blood flow promotes healing, too much movement too soon in the healing process is a bad thing, as it only results in re-injury and a much longer recovery time.
Exercise and Stretches do nothing to help Golfer's Elbow itself.
Certain exercises and stretches may be beneficial to rebuild your muscles after you address the underlying injury.
But these should not be done until you are further along in the healing process.
If you are doing them too early, you will know because your pain will start to grow again.
Pain after or during exercise means that exercise was bad for your elbow.
You need to accept that for a short while, reducing your activity is important to letting your elbow get over the hump in terms of healing.
You cannot keep doing the same level of activity you were doing before becoming injured.
You need to let your elbow rest.
If you are driving through the pain, you are just making your situation worse.
This can't be stressed enough about elbow injuries because your initial injury has turned into a more significant injury.
Rest is critical. Give your elbow a break.
You can gradually work your way back up to your regular activities, but this will take some time.
Check out our Causes of Golfer's Elbow page for more information on exercise and Golfer's Elbow.
Painkillers should never be used during times of physical activity. This is because painkillers completely block the pain signal, making you totally unaware that you're doing more damage to the injured area. Painkillers mask the pain, tricking you into thinking you're better and able to push yourself physically, when this will only result in further injury. Make sure you restrict painkillers to times when your body is at rest. Using painkillers when you're active means risking complete rupture of your tissue, and this means surgery and an even longer recovery.
While painkillers are effective at relieving pain and inflammation, they are not designed to address the root cause. In situations where the underlying injury is osteoarthritis or tendonitis, some meds can help if used at the right times. For more information about which meds help and when, give us a call, our treatment advisors will give you some excellent free advice. You need more than painkillers, though, if you really want to heal.
Check out our Treatment of Golfer's Elbow page for effective ways to deal with pain.
While using a heating pad on an injury can feel good due to the warmth, they do not provide any healing benefits. Many sites online are marketing heating pads in place of proper treatments like BFST®. The reality is that BFST® can heal soft tissue injuries, and heating pads can't. BFST® stimulates healthy blood flow in the area of your injury, deep below the skin. This increase in blood flow works to speed up the healing process. Heating pads can't do this. Heating pads simply bring blood to the surface of your skin, making it hot to the touch.
Unfortunately, many people buying inexpensive Chinese heating pads from American companies, like you see all over the internet, end up getting burned, not healed.
There are thousands of complaints filed with FDA every year from people who get skin burns or burnt furniture and house fires from defective heating pads that were sold as solutions to their injuries.
And unfortunately, those only represent a small portion of the people actually getting hurt.
Get BFST® for healing.
BFST® technology far surpasses the heating pad in terms of therapeutic benefits.
BFST wraps are 100% safe and heavily vetted by over 300,000 users and several regulatory bodies including FDA.
Check out our Treatment of Golfer's Elbow page to learn more about BFST therapy.
Bleeding should slow down if you raise an injury higher than your heart; however, this isn't necessary for a elbow injury. Particularly with a Golfer's Elbow, which is not usually a condition that comes with a lot of swelling. If, though, there is a noticeable lump forming on the back of your elbow as well, that's a bursa filling with synovial fluid. That synovial fluid only needs to drain from the bursa back into your elbow. Synovial fluid is good stuff your body is making for your elbow. Raising your elbow isn't going to move the fluid to any other area of your body, because it's not even attached to your blood flow or affected by blood pressure. Simply resting the injury is sufficient. If you have swelling with your Golfer's Elbow, you want to use cold compression to manage it.
One of the biggest mistakes you can make during recovery is stopping treatment before your injury has finished healing. The healing process does not end once the pain stops. The healing process takes much longer than most people realize. (You can click here for the full story on how tissue heals .) The key thing to remember is that long after the pain stops, your tissue is still healing. This means you need to continue doing BFST® treatments in order to complete the healing process. Doing regular BFST® treatments for several months after the pain is gone is extremely beneficial. Do a BFST® treatment prior to any physical activity to warm up your circulatory system and to help avoid re-injury.
Most people think that RICE - Rest, Ice, Compression & Elevation - is the formula to follow when treating inflammation, swelling and pain. The truth is that ice can actually freeze your skin and numb your nerves, causing 'cold burns' and even permanent damage to your underlying tissue. Rest is absolutely a good thing. The proper solution is RCCE® - Rest, Cold, Compression & Elevation.
For Golfer's Elbow, the compression should be gentle and constant for 20 to 30 minutes at a time.
Where ice is concerned, we don't want to apply ice - we want to apply cold that is just around freezing. Yes, you want cold - and lots of it - but not so cold that it is below the freezing point of water. ColdCure® technology was developed specifically to address the need for a cold compression device that does not freeze the skin and underlying tissue. ColdCure® gel packs pose no threat of cold burns. This makes them much safer to use than other products that use ice, which can cause the skin to freeze, leading to permanent damage. ColdCure gel packs are completely safe to use for extended treatment durations, meaning faster relief of pain and swelling. ColdCure® technology is a huge improvement on regular ice packs.
For a little while - not forever - it is really helpful to give your elbow a rest. In many cases, resting your elbow for a few weeks will give it time to heal to a point that your body gets ahead of the healing / reinjury cycle. It's important to realize that once the cyst goes away, your underlying injury may not be healed completely so take it easy and go back to regular life gradually once the pain and swelling are gone. If you want to be more proactive about healing the problem, you can click here to visit the Recommended Treatments page.
If you want your Golfer's Elbow to go away as quickly as possible, you need to rest the affected elbow. Avoid any physical activities that could cause further injury to your elbow. If your Golfer's Elbow developed from a elbow injury or condition, do your best to avoid the activity for a while.
Do regular ColdCure® treatments to control the pain and swelling. The compression during each treatment helps gently move the synovial fluid back into your elbow from the bursa sac if one a lump is developing.
You can also focus on healing your underlying elbow injury with regular BFST® treatments. This combination will work to finally get rid of your Golfer's Elbow.
Around the 4-6 week mark you can start doing some light strengthening exercises. Slowly work your way back to your regular level of activity. Continue doing BFST® treatments long after the pain and lump disappear to maintain the healing you've done. Do a ColdCure® treatment if you experience any flare-ups of pain and swelling and after any significant activity.
You will need to try to identify what the thing was that was causing the injury in the first place. As mentioned, Golfer's Elbow is often the result of Isometric Strain, not repetitive strain like many websites will tell you. Correct that bad habit, treat your elbow back to health, and you will likely never experience Golfer's Elbow again :)
Painkillers mask the pain, causing you to continue to stress and injure your elbow. This will only make your condition worse. It is understandable that people need relief from the pain, so if you have to take painkillers, restrict them to times when you are not going to be active for a while. You can use painkillers to help you sleep, if you don't think the isometric strain is coming from how you sleep. Using them when you are active is a recipe for permanent damage. Your choice of pain killers is important. You can give us a call to discuss which ones are best.
The ColdCure® Elbow Wrap is designed to relieve the pain associated with Golfer's Elbow. This safe and effective pain reliever is also great at bringing down swelling and inflammation. The ColdCure® Elbow Wrap is incredibly soothing and provides support and protection for your Golfer's Elbow. The painkilling element is incredibly powerful and it works instantly - there's no 20 minute wait like with pills.
Golfers Elbow can be extremely painful and debilitating. Pain killers such as ASA and acetaminophen are often used to treat the pain but these drugs do nothing to treat the actual condition. In fact, most painkillers are known blood thinners and make the bleeding worse for fresh tissue injuries. Cortisone injections are used in extreme cases but these too are intended to address the pain. They do not promote healing of the injury itself and they put you at a very high risk of further injury.
You don't have to wait for endless months in pain. You can heal much more quickly with the right treatment. For an elbow injury, blood flow is the most critical element in rapid recovery. Blood Flow Stimulation Therapy™ (BFST®) gives your elbow the blood flow it needs to heal quickly and completely.
BFST® brings extra oxygen and nutrient-rich blood to the injured area - a requirement for the body to heal itself. Unfortunately, an injured elbow at rest often has restricted blood flow, which extends your healing time and greatly increases the amount of scar tissue that develops. With a King Brand® BFST® elbow Wrap, blood flow can be stimulated in the area of injury while you are at rest. With improved blood flow and without physical activity and the risk of re-injury, you can recover from your elbow injury at a surprisingly rapid rate.
King Brand® soft tissue rehabilitation medical products are the #1 choice by top Athletic Therapists and Medical Practitioners worldwide. We provide guaranteed results and customer satisfaction. Like all King Brand® products, there simply isn't a better performing option. All King Brand® products come with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Try our products and if you are not completely impressed, you can send them back for a full refund. We know you will love them though, because hundreds of thousands of people already use them and rave about the results.
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King Brand® BFST® and ColdCure® Wraps are FDA Registered medical devices. They are intended to prevent, treat and cure soft tissue injuries and chronic conditions. Part of being an FDA Registered company means that our products are made from high quality, biocompatible materials. These devices are manufactured and tested to the highest safety standards in the industry.
