Anyone tried a Cortison injection for elbow tendonitis

I have nagging inner elbow tendonitis (medial epicondylitis). I am considering getting a cortisone injection but I have heard mixed things about it. Anyone ever try it?

Yes, years ago, but had to take 2 months off from hard climbing. It masks the injury a bunch. Good luck!

Jeremy H wrote:I have nagging inner elbow tendonitis (medial epicondylitis). I am considering getting a cortisone injection but I have heard mixed things about it. Anyone ever try it?

Not in my elbow, but in my shoulder and knee. It's a temporary fix.

Do you get "Climbers Elbow?" I am very susceptible to that. If I stay disciplined on my grip stick and other exercises to work the opposite muscles for climbing, I don't get it.

gripstik.com/

Didn't you start a similar thread on supertopo recently? If not, someone did and there's lots of feedback.

Here's the Supertopo thread. You have to wade through a lot of nonsense, but there are some good nuggets in there eventually. I've never had cortisone, but after reading through the thread, I can't think of any good reason for a climber to do it.

I had a cortisone injection for outer elbow tendonitis (lateral epicondylitis) ~ two years ago. I didn't know what tendonitis was, so I ignored the pain and climbed through it until it was so bad that I was having trouble working, so I got the injection. It reduced the pain very quickly so I could work again, but I still took ~1 month off from climbing and did stretching and strengthening exercises for it. I am very glad I got the injection that time, but I have had more minor tendonitis in other joints (wrist and other elbow) and I learned to rest (+ ice/NSAIDS/stretching/rehab exercises) before it got bad enough to even consider another cortisone shot. I do these exercises hughston.com/hha/a.seven.htm pretty regularly to prevent re-injuring it.

so, the shot worked for me, but you still have to take a lot of time/rehab to let it recover, can't just climb like your elbow is back to normal once the shot takes the pain away.

accident and injury forum

I had medial epicondylitis. I took two weeks off then got a shot. The pain went away right away so I started climbing again. The problem came back after about a month and has kept me from climbing for a year and a half now. I think I've finally found a way to cure it and tht is by mucho massage, light stretching, and light excercise. pain free for almost a month now and expecting to climb again withing a month or two. white people always say rest is crucial, it is also important to promote blood flow to the injury. Imobilizing a joint for a few days may be good medicine, but after that you're just allowing stagnation. Lots of ice massage directly to the injury making sure to warm up between icings. The shrinking effects of cold push out old fluids and allow new fresh blood to flow into the injury when it warms up.
everyone is different though. experiment.
If I were to go back in time and get the shot, I would just be really careful to do nothing but light climbing until the effects of the shot had worn off. and I would take it very slow. doctors don't really give a shit about you. they're too busy

It's been my experience treating Med. Epicondylitis that Myofascial release techniques and/or aggressive deep tissue massage are the best remedies for it. It will take time and you'll likely have to modify your climbing/training intensity and volume until you've got the problem under control and then begin building back up after the problem is well in hand.
So I would be in the cortisone won't be much help for Med. elbow pain camp.
Just to throw another variable on the table... a fair amount of time medial elbow pain can come from attachments proximal to the elbow. There is a very substantial fascial structure that runs along the inside of the arm and help forms the intermuscular septum between the biceps and triceps, it essentially helps to transfer force from the Latissimus Dorsi to the Medial Epicondyle when hanging body weight on the arms and this traction can create the same mechanism of injury as classic Medial Epicondylitis, just from the proximal side of the elbow.
So if working through the finger flexors, wrist flexors and pronator teres doesn't seem to be doing much try looking north of the elbow for soft tissue problems.
Good luck w/ the injury,
BA