What is golfer’s elbow? What are its symptoms and treatment? You will learn this from the article below.
Golfer’s elbow is enthesopathy of the medial epicondyle of the humerus, it is a pain syndrome of attachment of the wrist flexor muscles located on the medial side of the elbow joint. Pain is most often associated with overloading of the flexors of the wrist flexors.
Symptoms:
- The main symptom you may notice is medial pain in the elbow. You will not notice a reduced range of mobility, strength or sensation. In contrast, the pain will be worse when throwing or converting the forearm with resistance.
- You will notice the greatest tissue tenderness in the area of muscle attachments: recurrent roundness and elbow flexor of the wrist.
- Depending on the severity of the changes, the pain you will feel may be minor and appear mainly at the beginning of physical activity or very severe, preventing you from continuing the activity.
What treatment looks like:
- Initially, the best solution will be modification of physical activity, ice compresses, use of anti-inflammatory agents.
- With persistent pain symptoms, corticosteroid injections are most often performed near the affected tendons.
- Physiotherapy plays an important role at all stages of treatment, which should be devoted to time. The rehabilitation program includes isometric exercises, followed by more intensive exercises with resistance.
- In cases of chronic inflammation, when inoperative treatment turns out to be insufficient, you should go to an orthopedist, with whom you will take further action.
What should prevention look like?
In order for the golfer’s elbow to not interfere with doing your favourite sport, always remember to warm up before physical activity, exercise your forearm muscles, for example by squeezing the ball, and make sure that your technique during the activity is appropriate.
In summary, if you have problems with your elbow, it is worth consulting a specialist. Take care of it before it’s too late.
