Tennis elbow is sometimes called Lateral Epicondylitis.
Tennis elbow is a term used to describe a condition where an individual experiences extreme pain at the back of their elbow.
The pain feels worse during movement, usually actions that involve some strength to straighten the arm, twisting the forearm, or bending the wrist.
It is not a tennis injury.
The name is misleading.
Most people who have tennis elbow do not play tennis.
Your doctor may tell you, 'It might be overuse'.
They may tell you, 'It might be' an activity you're doing.
Your Doctor will likely ask you what you think may be a factor, and just validate what you say.
The reality is, often, three's no clinical cause he/she can tell you, because it's a condition that sneaks up on people out of the blue.
Doctors use Tennis Elbow as a term to explain a condition where even they do not know the root cause.
"Tennis Elbow" describes what you are experiencing.
They can just diagnose that you are injured.
If there was a specific injury revealed by testing, the doctor would usually give a more specific diagnosis.
There's never any harm in getting diagnostics done.
If there is a more specific injury, those tests often reveal the issue.
But if your ache kind of came out of nowhere and your doctor isn't ordering more tests, don't be alarmed.
There is a lot of misinformation online.
You will find sites that say tennis elbow is from repetitive use or an excess-strain injury.
You will find sites that say it's related to some activity or another.
But the truth is, there is no clear cause of what leads to Tennis Elbow in most people.
What's most important to understand though, is that the pain and the cause are often 2 different events.
Key Takeaways:
Most people feel the pain of tennis elbow first, in some sort of physical activity that they often do.
It might be tennis, or it might be another form of exercise, or it may be something you do commonly at home.
In the end though, the activity that the pain first shows up in, is often not the cause of the issue itself.
It's just where you first feel the pain.
That you feel pain during some activities is important.
Pain during any activity means that what you are doing is more than what your elbow is ready to do at that point in time.
It may not be the activity that started the problem, but it is now an activity that can make the situation worse.
When you have pain, respect the pain.
Let up on the activity you are doing a bit.
Don't drive through the pain.
Even if that activity didn't cause it, driving through pain can definitely make your condition worse.
Repetitive strain and Overactivity are often said to be the cause of Tennis Elbow.
Let's be clear here:
Overactivity or Repetitive Strain that causes Tennis Elbow is only when you do something excessively strenuous over and over.
If the activity is light, you can almost always do it endlessly and not have to worry about developing Tennis Elbow or other elbow injuries.
Your elbow is designed to do repetitive activity.
Lifting medium to light weights repeatedly, constant pushing, pulling, sweeping, and bending of the elbow - these are all considered light activity.
Even a whole lot of light repetitive activity is not a concern for a healthy elbow.
Again, your elbow is designed to do that type of light to moderate activity repeatedly.
There are protectors in your elbow called bursae.
Usually, a bursa protects your epicondyle tendons from rubbing on the bone and surrounding tissue.
That's it's purpose.
For light to medium activity, it is 100% protection.
If the activity is heavy though, if you are putting a lot of pressure on the joint during the motion, the tissue can push together more than the bursa can protect them, and injury can happen.
Even if it happens occasionally, that's not a problem.
The bursa will protect you during times of occasional heavy strain.
But there's a limit when it comes to heavy activity.
Tennis Elbow can go away if you let up on the activity and let the joint heal.
Often, active people develop epicondylitis that they don't even realize is there.
And the body's response to a slightly injured tendon is to start producing synovial fluid, which fills up the bursa and nourishes the area to help the joint heal.
When the repetitive injury is mild enough that you don't notice it, but it persists for a long time, then that can cause Tennis Elbow to develop.
Again, it's worth noting that if you are doing mild repetitive activity, you are not likely to sustain any injury no matter how much you do it.
If the elbow tendons are not being pushed hard enough to bump more than the bursa can protect them, then your joint can do that activity forever.
So don't get confused by the terms 'overuse injury' and 'repetitive strain injury'.
That sort of injury only occurs if the excessive activity is also excessively strenuous on the joint.
There are other much less common elbow injuries that can result in damaged elbow tendons.
If you have a very jarring motion, it is possible to put a significant tear in a tendon with just one incident.
Those situations are less common.
Suffice it to say, that if some part of that Elbow has an injury that you don't know about and your body is trying to resolve it for a long time, Tennis Elbow can result.
Key Takeaways:
By far, the most common causes of Tennis Elbow are what you are doing when you are not moving!
Your elbow is designed to be in constant motion.
Your elbow is made to do repetitive tasks.
That constant motion keeps things moving in your elbow and your elbow is happy that way.
Think about what you are doing when you're not being active though.
When you sit at the computer or when watching TV is your bad arm tensed in the same certain position all the time?
Are you constantly resting your head on your arm, and your elbow on the table, as you look at your screen at work?
Do you sleep with your elbow bent tight and your hand under your head or your pillow?
Do you spend significant time in the day or night with your elbow hyper-extended (fully straightened)?
These things that we sometimes do - where we lock our elbow in a position for an extended period of time - may be the root cause of the problem.
These sorts of stresses are called Isometric Strain.
Yes, it is possible that a stressful activity you are doing, or something repetitive, could be the cause.
But those types of injuries usually lead to tendonitis, or osteoarthritis, or torn tissue, or various other conditions that do show up through diagnostics.
In those situations, the doctor gives that specific diagnosis.
If you really think your exercise at the gym is to blame, you may be right.
People usually first feel the pain during activity so it's natural to guess that might be the cause.
But don't rule out the high probability that isometric strain as discussed above is truly the original source of the problem.
Key Takeaways:
Your elbow is designed to be in constant motion.
That motion contributes to circulation and prevents the parts of your joints from getting squeezed for too long.
You can actually hurt your elbow by 'doing nothing'.
Constant pressure on a body part when it is not moving can lead to injuries called Isometric Strain Injury.
If you are inactive for an extended period of time and your elbow is being held in a position where part of it is being squeezed too much and too long, you may be hurting yourself.
You have cartilage between the bones in your elbow.
When you move it gets squeezed between the bones and released, over and over again.
It's designed to work that way.
But it's possible, when you stop in the wrong position, that your bones squeeze the cartilage constantly and do some damage.
If that position is held for really long periods of time, day after day, that damage may accumulate.
The same goes for your tendons and ligaments and nerves and the other tissue in your elbow.
If they get squeezed under a lot of pressure for a very long time, they can get damaged.
Very often, it is the times when we're not using our elbows that cause the condition.
And that kind of damage doesn't hurt when it's happening.
It hurts later, when you try to use the tissue for your normal activity.
Very often, that is at the root of Tennis Elbow.
So the chances are high that you may be hurting your elbow during times of inactivity.
And that makes it hard to figure out because you end up feeling the pain during other times of activity.
It is quite probable that the activity you are doing when you feel the pain isn't the root cause of the problem.
But the pain is an indication that your situation is bad enough that your activity may start to make your situation worse.
The good news is that if you correct the underlying cause and treat the condition so it heals, you may be able to resume your favorite activity and never have to worry about Tennis Elbow again.
Key Takeaways:
If you look online, many sites repeat the message that 2 years is the typical duration for Tennis Elbow to plague people.
But that data is very old and it is also based on people who did nothing to correct the root cause or proactively heal their elbow.
Your Tennis Elbow is going to last until your body successfully heals the underlying injury.
By the time that damage develops to the point that you notice it, you have probably had the injury for several months already.
There's no doubt about it, something in your lifestyle is causing your injury to persist - your body can't heal the problem as fast as it's getting reinjured.
So, it is unlikely that it will just go away, unless you change something about your activity.
Perhaps you've already corrected the underlying issue and it just didn't have a chance to heal, and the pain has persisted ever since.
Knowing the cause is the best scenario, because if that's the case, you know what to change.
You can allow your body to heal and get past that injury.
Then, you are likely to be able to return to the same activity level as before and never have the problem again.
No matter what the cause, though, you have an underlying injury now and you need to let it heal.
If you correct the underlying problem, your tennis elbow will go away and you will likely be able to resume normal life.
That is, if this whole ordeal is dealt with properly...
The internet is full of bad advice about treating your elbow.
Here's a short list though:
Your elbow needs your help to heal.
But it does not need you to just start randomly doing stretches and exercises you find on the web.
This is a great way to keep your injury going.
Reinjuring the tissue is the number one thing prolonging your healing time.
These elbow ligaments and tendons are engaged every time we use our arms.
So, it does not get to rest, unless, you focus and make a point of resting and using a control like wearing a sling.
Another complicating factor is that many people find that sleeping aggravates their tennis elbow.
You may need to either find a way to change your sleeping position, so you alleviate pressure on the impacted elbow.
But obviously, if both sleeping and daily activities cause irritation, it will take some planning to arrange the time to rest your elbow.
At first, you want to focus on three things.
Reduce pain with cold compression not medication.
Avoid reinjuring the area (consider a sling or medical tape).
Increase blood flow to the area to stimulate rapid healing.
Here are some definite things to avoid that people wrongly think may help:
Pain reduction is important.
When the elbow tendon hurts, you need to reduce pain so you can go about your day and do the things you need to do.
But masking pain with pain medication is not recommended because it can lead to you being unaware of the damage you are doing to the area.
This is a very common way people get caught in an injury and reinjury cycle.
Don't get caught in this loop.
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Get some initial rest for the injured area and give it time to heal.
Find ways to protect the injured tissue from too much use during the early healing phase.
Use cold for pain during the day.
If you do use pain medications, use them at night for sleep.
Don't use them during the day since they greatly increase your chances of adding more damage to your tennis elbow.
25x 50x
Some pain medications can help - if you use the right one at the right time.
Call us and speak to one of our trained treatment advisors about which pain relievers work best.
We are here to help.
TENS is an acronym that means Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation.
The TENS machine is designed to overstimulate the nerves to relieve pain.
It deadens the nerves and that's it.
Yes, you want to reduce pain.
The pain with tennis elbow can be debilitating for sure.
But TENS machine use over an injury is a very bad idea.
54x
TENS causes your muscles to spasm during treatment.
That's bad.
Having your elbow injury pulse and flex uncontrolled will cause further tissue damage and slow down healing.55x
Avoid this treatment as it can make things significantly worse for this condition.
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 problem.
It's important to realize that once the pain goes away, your underlying injury may not be healed completely.
Take it easy.
Once the pain and swelling are gone, go back to regular life gradually.
If you want to be more proactive about healing the problem, you can click here to visit the Recommended Actions page.
If you want your Tennis Elbow to go away as quickly as possible, you need to rest your elbow.
Avoid any physical activities that could cause further pain.
If you really think your tennis elbow developed from a specific activity, do your best to avoid that activity for an extended period of time.
Do regular ColdCure® treatments to control the pain and swelling in the back of your elbow.
The compression during each treatment helps gently move synovial fluid back into your elbow from the bursa sac where it may be collecting.27x 26x
You can also focus on healing your underlying elbow injury with regular BFST® treatments.
This combination will work to finally get rid of your Tennis Elbow.
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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 at rest.
You can use painkillers to help you sleep.
Using them when you are active is a recipe for permanent damage.25x 50xYour choice of pain killers is important.
You can give us a call to discuss which ones are best.
When it comes to Tennis Elbow pain relief The ColdCure® Elbow Wrap is designed to relieve the pain.
This safe and effective pain reliever is also great at bringing down swelling and inflammation.26x 27x 51x
The ColdCure® Wrap is incredibly soothing and provides support and protection for your elbow.
The painkilling element is incredibly powerful and it works instantly - there's no 20 minute wait like with pills.
There's no doubt about it, for healing most tissue injuries in the body, blood flow is the most critical element in rapid recovery.
The blood flow brings the building blocks for new cell growth.
It carries away the waste and damaged tissue.
It brings antibodies to protect against infection.
Your blood flow supplies the cells in your body with everything it needs and removes much of what needs to be taken away.
While your heart ensures a sufficient supply to your body as a whole, in the individual parts of your body there are a lot of factors that determine how much that area receives.
Motion in local tissue can play a significant role in blood supply, but when you are injured, that motion is reduced, and so is the trigger to bring blood to the area.43x
People often don't understand that motion alone is enough, and that does not mean putting a heavy load on your joint.
When you swing your arm gently and with limited range, that's enough.
Adding weight, or doing stressful exercise doesn't improve the motion, and the added loads can end up resulting in reinjury.33x
Find light, gentle motions that you can do with no pain at all and do those several times each day.
Even leaning over and swinging your dangling arm through the day is enough; you don't need to add more load.
Diathermy is a medical process to promote blood flow in tissue that is at rest.7x
Diathermy is a process by which energy is sent deep into the body to stimulate blood flow in tissue far below the skin.1x 2x
An example of diathermy is ultrasound treatment, commonly used in physiotherapy.13x The challenge with ultrasound is that all diathermic treatments are effective for only up to 4 hours, whereas most people go to the clinic once every couple of days.
Also, ultrasound is an older, more risky process that can damage subdermal tissue, so it needs to be performed by a trained technician.
That means you can't do it at home.
The good news is that you have an option other than ultrasound.
BFST® devices from King Brand are diathermic devices that people can safely use at home to promote healing.1x 2x
With a home diathermic device, you can apply treatment multiple times each day, which significantly improves blood flow and accelerates the healing process.7x
And they are more powerful too, providing deeper stimulation than traditional clinic-based treatments.13x
An ultrasound device is highly focused, and the effective treatment area may be less than 1 square inch beneath the surface.
That is why it must be constantly moved around during treatment, both to cover the entire injury and to avoid overheating or burning tissue.
BFST® devices offer a major improvement.
They treat up to 70 square inches of tissue at once, without requiring any movement.
This means your elbow injury can be treated more completely, with better safety and far less effort.1x 2x
They are typically up to 10 times more powerful than ultrasound and completely safe for home use.13x
BFST® brings extra oxygen and nutrient-rich blood to the injured area - a requirement for the body to heal itself.1x Unfortunately, an injured elbow at rest often has restricted blood flow, which extends your healing time.33x
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 reduced strenuous activity, you reduce the risk of re-injury and you can recover from your tennis elbow at a surprisingly rapid rate.
For proactive treatment advice click here for our Recommended Treatments page.
For more in-depth information about how an injury heals click here for our Healing Page.
To minimize pain and swelling, use a ColdCure® any time your pain level increases, or if you have been active. The ColdCure® Elbow Wrap provides effective relief of the swelling and pain that comes with Tennis Elbow. ColdCure® Elbow Wraps use cold and compression together, because cold and compression are the two things you need to help reduce pain and swelling as quickly and effectively as possible.27x The application of cold compression must be uniform and complete if it's going to work the best.26x This is why the ColdCure® Elbow Wrap has been custom designed to perfectly fit the back and sides of the Elbow, to ensure that your injury receives an even distribution of cooling power.
ColdCure® Elbow Wrap - Stop the Pain
If your biggest issue is the pain, then you definitely want the ColdCure® wrap. The ColdCure® Elbow Wrap comes with 3 swappable cold packs that contain our unique XC RigiGel® formula. This isn't that 'blue goo' that you get from the drug store, no way. This is super gel. It holds tons more cold and stays cold much longer. Its ice that bends like rubber. It's amazing. The elasticized wrap holds the cold firmly in place against your injury sucking away the pain while it gently reduces swelling. If pain is your #1 concern, this is your #1 solution. With extra gel packs included you can treat the pain over and over again, never running out of ice.
The King Brand Recovery Packs listed below include our full list of products to heal as quickly as possible from your Tennis Elbow. As an added bonus, the Recovery Packs include a discount that's been built into the package price.
Three Piece Recovery Pack - Save BIG on the Essentials
The Three Piece Recovery Package deal includes the Elbow BFST®, ColdCure®, KB Support Tape™.
These are the three most important tools we can recommend for your Tennis Elbow injury. They work together to help heal you, protect you, and reduce the pain.
Four Piece "On The Go" Pack - The Biggest Savings Including Battery
The Four Piece Recovery Pack is designed for people who are always on the go, and want the convenience of treatments anywhere and at any time.
This bundle includes everything mentioned in our Three Piece Recovery Pack, and also includes our BFST® Battery Pack.
With the BFST® Battery Pack, you don't need an outlet.
You can take your treatments in the car, on the plane, or wherever your day takes you.
With a full charge on your BFST® Battery Pack, you will have more than enough power to complete all of your treatments for 2 or 3 days between charges.
KB Basics Elbow Cold Pack - An Economical Alternative to ColdCure
This little gem is our low cost alternative to the ColdCure wrap.
The ColdCure wrap fully opens and straps in place with Velcro closures.
By comparison, this economical wrap is made of stretchy material and it slips on like a sleeve without adjustable straps.
It fits most elbows, except for really big or really small ones.
Where the ColdCure has 3 replaceable gel packs that you insert into the wrap, this basics version has just one gel pack that is sewn right into the wrap.
In between uses you will put the entire wrap in the freezer, not just the gel pack like you do with the ColdCure version.
For the price, though, this is a super high quality and effective little wrap for your Elbow.
It's not quite ColdCure quality, but it sure is good!
Your elbow moves a lot through the day, and when you're struggling with Tennis Elbow, you feel every little movement.
You can't stop everything and wait for your Tennis Elbow to go away, so let's provide some support for your elbow, without taking away your range of motion.
KB Support Tape™ is designed to protect your tendons, ligaments and muscles and help prevent further damage as you go through your day.
It does this all without restricting your range of motion.
Our skin is soft and elastic and can stretch much more than the tissue underneath.
When you apply Support Tape™ to your skin, it becomes a much more rigid surface than before; serving to limit how much the skin can stretch.
Support Tape™ makes your skin a source of outside support to hold your damaged tissue beneath it in place, helping you avoid re-injury.24x That's why we call it armor for your injury.
Support Tape™ - Protection from Re-Injury
Too busy to be injured? Have to keep going? Then Support Tape™ is your "must have".
Constant re-injury is often the biggest reason the Tennis Elbow doesn't heal.
It heals when at rest but when you get back on the go, the injury gets worse.
Athletes are always taped up. That's to prevent against re-injury while they are active.
And King Brand Support Tape™ is made for that purpose.
Taping is very underappreciated and very effective.
If you have to keep moving, you have to tape.
There's one big difference between King Brand Support Tape and regular kinesiology tapes and athletic tapes you find in the drug stores.
King Brand tape is medical grade; all those others are athletic grade.
The difference is that medical grade tape is designed to be worn all day long, day after day, like when you're dealing with tennis elbow.
They may look the same, but the materials are entirely different.
Athletic tape is designed for occasional, temporary use - maybe an hour or two at a time, every now and then.
The materials in Athletic tape can be toxic to your skin with prolonged exposure.
Many are even carcinogenic.
King Brand medical tape is designed for long term repeated use like you will use it treating your elbow.
Choose wisely and stay safe.
The color is purely your sense of style.
The Pre-Cut Strips are super convenient; they're really the right length for most elbow taping.
You still may cut one piece in half though.
The Continuous Roll gives you more control over how you tape your Elbow and you get the most use out of a single roll.
We've briefly covered the most common reasons people are plagued by Tennis Elbow. There's lots more information available. You can explore the Quick Links menu at the very bottom of the screen - they all containing more information about the condition. Here are some of the popular pages:
King Brand® soft tissue rehabilitation medical products are the choice of many top Athletic Therapists and Medical Practitioners. 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 over one hundred thousand people already use them and rave about the results.
Click here to see our Customer Testimonials
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.
