The cure for the repetitive motion injury of the tendons that join the forearm muscles on the outside of the elbow, colloquially known as tennis or golfer's elbow, is more useful.

With tennis or a golfer's elbow, you need to settle it down and rest it but after that, the best research and evidence points to exercise as the most effective treatment for healing.

He explained that tennis elbow or lateral epicondylitis, which affects the outside of the forearm at the elbow, and golfer's elbow or medial epicondylitis, which affects the inside, were believed to be related to inflammation, and thus a form of tendonitis. However, researchers and physicians began to notice these injuries were more often a form of tendinopathy, where the inflammation is a symptom of an underlying problem related to weak or disrupted tendon fibrils.

This is not meant to scare anyone, but they were finding the structure of the tendon itself actually changed and degenerated a little bit. It's usually related to strength, flexibility or the mechanics of a motion the body is not prepared to tolerate, so the tendons get overworked and overstressed, and cause the pain.

Not just from tennis or golf

Golfer's and tennis elbows are seldom caused by actually playing golf or tennis. Any activity that requires repetitive arm movements, like typing or working with tools, can cause debilitating elbow pain, as can participating in heavy tasks such as weightlifting or overdoing it in activity after being largely sedentary, like painting your home over a long weekend.

You have to listen to your body and take regular breaks when doing any sort of repetitive or heavy task. Also, be sure to change up the task, don't push through the pain and be sure to maintain good body mechanics.

Treatment

However, once the damage is done and especially if there is acute pain, he said the best thing to do is follow the PRICE protocol-protection, rest, ice, compression and elevation-and maybe take some sort of anti-inflammatory medication or wear a tennis elbow brace.