Conditions ยท Tennis Elbow
Tennis elbow is an overloaded tendon, not just a sore spot. Here's what's actually happening, why rest alone rarely fixes it, and how we treat it with super pulsed cold laser and massage.
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Illustration: InjuryMap via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
You don't have to play tennis to get tennis elbow. Most people we see got it from gripping. A mouse, a hammer, a steering wheel, a toddler, a coffee cup. Anything that asks your wrist to hold steady and pull back, over and over, for months.
The pain sits on the bony bump on the outside of your elbow. It flares when you shake hands, lift a pan, or turn a doorknob. Sometimes it aches into the top of your forearm.
The muscles that pull your wrist back all start from one small tendon attached to that bony bump. When those muscles stay tight for a long time, they keep tugging on the tendon. Eventually the tendon can't keep up with repair, and it gets irritated and thickened.
So tennis elbow isn't really a "sore elbow." It's a tug of war that the back of your forearm has been winning for too long.
The muscles on the back of your forearm that pull your wrist up get short and guarded. They're the ones pulling on the painful tendon.
The muscles on the palm side of your forearm stop pulling their share. When one side dominates, the other goes quiet.
Rounded shoulders and a forward head change how your whole arm hangs. That puts more strain on the elbow before you even pick anything up.
Rest lets the pain calm down. But it doesn't change the tight muscles pulling on the tendon, and it doesn't wake up the weak ones. So when you go back to normal life, the same pull is waiting for you.
And if your shoulders and neck are part of the story, treating only the elbow means treating the end of the chain, not the start of it.
The super pulsed cold laser we use is FDA-cleared for fibromyalgia, tennis elbow, and neck and shoulder pain. Tennis elbow is one of the conditions it was cleared for, which is a big part of why it sits at the center of how we treat it.
When the pain is sharp or the area is swollen, the first job is quieting things down. No stretching, no loading. Just laser over the painful spot so your nervous system stops shouting.
Once the pain eases, we shift to the muscles pulling on the tendon. Laser and hands-on work help them let go, and you get a simple stretch to keep that length between visits.
When the elbow is quiet, we bring the underused muscles on the other side of the forearm back online so the tug of war finally evens out.
If your shoulders round forward or your head drifts ahead of your body, we work there too. Otherwise the elbow keeps getting the leftover strain.
You won't get a one-size-fits-all routine. Your protocol is matched to your healing phase, and it changes as the tendon calms down. Your starting session count comes from our Decade Rule.
If your elbow keeps flaring every time you go back to normal life, the tug of war in your forearm hasn't been settled yet. An assessment shows where the pull is coming from.
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