Tennis elbow

Probably the best known form of the painful elbow is the so-called tennis elbow, which is called epicondylitis lateralis humeri in the technical language. This causes pain on the outside of the elbow. Sometimes the pain radiates into the hand.

Stretching and lifting movements as well as bending movements in the elbow can lead to severe pain. This is because it is precisely at the painful point – a lateral bony protrusion on the humerus – that many muscles responsible for the stretching movements of the wrist and hand are involved. Repeated bending and stretching movements can lead to irritation of the tendon attachments, which causes the pain symptoms typical of the tennis elbow.

Irritation of the tendons is also generally referred to as tendinosis. Tennis elbow is not exclusively caused by playing tennis, it can always occur when bending and stretching movements in the arm are performed particularly frequently. As a rule, chronic strain at work (e.g. for craftsmen or secretaries) or everyday life is much more often the cause of a painful tennis elbow.

These include very monotonous and repetitive activities. Often, however, no trigger for the existing pain can be made. To get rid of the pain, it is advisable to immobilize the aching muscles.

However, this is not always so easy to implement due to various work-related obligations. In the case of tennis elbow, cold or heat applications or bandages with pain-relieving and anti-inflammatory ointments are particularly helpful. As a last measure in case of failure of the conservative treatment it is possible to perform an operation.

In this case, the painful tendon attachments of the extensor muscles are detached from the bone and should grow back further down the bone so that the tension on the tendon attachments is reduced. In many cases, the nerve fibers that transmit the pain from this inflamed area are also severed, so that the pain is no longer felt in the future. Very rarely, however, it happens that permanent painlessness is not achieved even by surgery.