Ellbow injury - tendonitis?

Hi Felix yes this is most likely a tendinitis of a muscle called pronator teres and it rotates the arm at the elbow joint. Take antiinflammatory drugs (eg voltaren 50 mg twicw a day for 10 days, apply heat (a gel hot pack or submersion in warm water) 2 times 15 minutes daily, see a physiotherapist to get help with stretching and then perform it religiously, keep completedly of climbing for 10 days. It you by that time dont feel improvenment see a sport medicine specialized Dr. if you do feel improvement start climbing steeping up the intensity slowely and keep up the stertching and the heat treatment. Eventually you should strength train the pronator (ask the physioterapist). Best of luck Björn

Hi Björn! I also have an elbow injury/inflammation, but on the inside and with pain in the hole lower, upperarm when climbing. But what I wonder is: what the difference is between using Diklofenac and Ibuprofen drugs? I also wonder how you justify the heat treatment rather ice massage/treatment? I just wonder because when seeking answers on the web, it seems like I find 50/50 hits on these two questions.. Ha D gott!

Hi this is most likely a flexor tendon inflammation (golf elbow) - rest and stretching is advised. Voltaren and Ibuprofen are booth NSAID non steroid antiinflammatory drugs - Voltaren is considerd to be stronger but also carries more side effects. There is in practical medicine a consensus that cold/ice treatment is used only in the acute phase after an injury (houers) after that heat treatment is more benificial for the healing process. Above on this forum we have discussed an alternative use of cold imersion in adjunction to tendon healing in the hands -this might work in this special case but is not an established pratise in the sports medical community Hope it sorted it out somehow Ha D Björn

Thanks!

Hi, I have previously been suffering from a Tennis Elbow and currently have a problem again with the other arm. I have had really good experiences with regular stretching exercises. I found an interesting non-profit page with some tips and feedback: http://tennisarm.ch/frm.htm?/welcome2.htm Get better soon! Alex

Hello, About July of last year I developed golfer's elbow (pain on the inside of the elbow), and I struggled for a long time with how to heal it. I tried the anti-inflammatory drugs, and they helped some; wearing elbow braces also helped some. Honestly, the most important thing was just to rest, and also to try and avoid moves which specifically bother the elbow (for me this was excessive campusing and very dynamic moves on jugs). Now I experience very little (practically no) pain in my elbow, and I still climb about five times a week. Just know that there is *hope* even though there is no real cure, and you can still climb at a high level after a bout of elbow tendonitis. Good luck

Thanks, Doc (and others). So, I've been taking voltaren pills and have been applying voltaren gel on my arm for over a week - hasn't really improved. Resting completely for two weeks didn't help either. Does that mean the only cure is total rest until it's gone? Or continue climbing, avoiding painfull moves? I also noticed that heat definitley seems to reduce the pain, it actually allows me to rotate my arm pain-free. As for the comments about golfers/tennis ellbow: That's a different story, isn't it? Or is it just another form of tendonitis?

Hey there. I've been hearing more and more about injuries to tendons, and tendonitis. people have told me the best way to get rid of tendonitis is to not get it... Sounds weird, but everyone says it is caused by muscle imbalances. Simply doing reverse arm curls with light weights, or a roll-up weight/bar thing will do. Im sure in your case, after prescribed rest and whatnot, you can get rid of the problem or cope with it by strengthening your forearms more equally. You may also find yourself crankin' harder due to the strengthening of smaller stabilizer muscles! Best of luck!

Ok so the golfers elbow is another story -more connected to overtraining or high impact on the tendons (hitting a golf ball) it will hit flexior (gripping muscles) on the inside (medial epicondylitis) part of your forearm and here again cutting back and stretching is the key. Concerning extensor (outside of elbow or lateral epicondylitis you can add, as suggested by Knottybro, training the extensors after stretching the - this is done by doing reverse wrist curls or by rolling a bar witth a rope attatched to it so will lift a weight (2-10 kg) be rotating your wrist (palms down) with upward flicks of your wrists - this will balance your strenght and give you powerful crimping as a bonus What you have got is again another story- reading your story and looking at the picture once again I tealised that it is suppination (turning the palm upwards) that is hurting this involves the biceps and the brachioradialis muscles - the remedy is as described in my first response and to this you can add strenght training the muscles by rotation a dumbell with weights only on one side - by wrist rotation from side to side. You ca also do biceps curls with a pals down grip. Dont quit climbing altogether just cut down on the lockoffs and hard overhanging climbing Best of luck Björn

Hi all, just wanted to give some feedback on my ellbow. It has been roughly half a year now since the injury occured in the first place but I can say that I'm through! At least I haven't been feeling any oain for a couple of weeks now. However, after hard climbing my ellbow still feels weaker than the other. My treatment consisted of the following: - taping: firmly around forearm and lower bizeps - voltaren: mostly external application, had been taking the pills for a while but didn't seem to help - climb: have actually been climbing stronger than ever despite the ellbow - making sure to avoid pull-up-like moves with my left arm - no bouldering within the first three or so months. The only two or three times I went bouldering made it worse immideately. It took a REALLY long time to get better, I'd say after 4 months I felt the first big improvements. Complete rest didn't help, took off from climbing three weeks once and two weeks twice. Active rest seemed more effective. I'll stay away from pull-ups for another couple of weeks though, don't wanna risk anything. All the best Felix

Hi everybody, okay, so when I said that it's over, that was little to early I think .... actually even after only about 5 weeks of climbing in total during the last 7 months (due to work) I still have problems, but they are mainly concentrated to the area of the left yellow-ish spot in above's picture i.e. pain in the Brachioradialis . I believe it's not related to the rotating anymore as I can only feel it when flexing my arm (especially pull-ups with palm facing away). It has been lingering there almost the whole time, and definately as soon as I do a pull-up or similar climbing moves (especially bouldering where the load might be higher than in route climbing) despite thorough warm-up it hurts. Actually went climbing 3 days ago for the first time in about 4 weeks and had pretty sore muscles in my arms and upper body (to a normal degree), now my right arm (which is actually my weaker arm) is fine again, but my left arm is still really sore in said spot and pressure sensitive, too. When I get back home in a few weeks I will go see a doc about it for sure but maybe you have some more recommendations meantime? Stretching? It feels kinda good to stretch that muscle. Heat? Triceps strenghening? Also for interests sake, what could a doc do to make it better? Cheers Felix

Okay, looks like I found tge cure already ... started doing pushups (hadn't been able to do them for quite some time because of an shoulder injury) and already after the first day the pain wa sgone. And afte rthe next bouldering session there was no pain either, despite pull-up training.