Elbow Tendonitis

Is there anything out there that actually helps heal elbow tendonitis?

Theraband Flexbar. It helped for my wrist tendonitis and is supposed to work for elbows too. I used the green color and it was the perfect resistance. 

sandrock wrote: Theraband Flexbar. It helped for my wrist tendonitis and is supposed to work for elbows too. I used the green color and it was the perfect resistance. 

This and making sure I stayed hydrated seems to have taken care of mine.

^ Just started using the green TheraBand Flexbar I think it's great. It has helped me with my very slight dull pain in my elbow that just appeared out of nowhere. I'm doing the Tyler Twist and holding the bar out level and bending the "hurt" elbow to make a L shape. Also I've been icing it at night. 

Pronation exercises 3 times a day, 20 reps each.  Palm up.  Don't go too heavy.  Use a one sided dumbbell.  Start with the dumbell in a vertical position and rotate outward.  At the bottom of the rep, assist the dumbbell back up into the vertical position.  You should be able to control the motion but be struggling to control the motion by the last few reps.  

Deep tissue massage.  Use an object, fingers or thumbs or whatever else you can to dig deep and promote blood flow.  The deep tissue massage should hurt a little.  About a 3-5 on the 10 scale. 3 times per day.  

Stretch your forearms multiple times per day.

Nitro glycerin patches. I’ve had golfers elbow for two years. I’ve done every trick in the book,
Therabar
Wrist curls ( rock and ice dodgy elbows protocol
Deep tissue massage
Exstensive icing
All types of stretching ( including Tom Randall’s golfers elbow stretch
Ultrasound therapy
Scraping scar tissue
Acupuncture
Any strengthening excercises
Pushups ( obviously)
Tricep extentions.
Let me reiterate all of it, prp as well
Nothing worked for me.
After talking with numerous doctors ( including Climbing specific doctors and physical therapists)
After all this, I went to a sports med doc at northwestern chicago. She prescribed me this obscure patch for high blood pressure, she also gave me a study showing that the patch had a positive result for helping with tendinitis. The idea is that it increases blood flow to the affected area and helps the tendon heal. I wore the patch every day for around two months and the pain was gone. During this time I continued with very light rehab and stretching. After six months and hard climbing , still no pain. If tendinitis is severe enough check this out it definitely works if your patient.

sandrock wrote: Theraband Flexbar. It helped for my wrist tendonitis and is supposed to work for elbows too. I used the green color and it was the perfect resistance. 

This fixed my golfer's elbow. 

There are a ton of threads on this if you search around. If yours just won't go away despite rest it's probably more likely tendinosis than tendinitis. If you have tendinosis rather than tendinitis, then rest will not cut it.

I had a moderate but persistent case of elbow tendinosis (golfer's elbow) for about three years and tried everything. Months of no activity, physical therapy, and the Rock & Ice "Dodgy Elbows" program did not work for me--no improvement with any of that. Ironically, what eventually worked was the same thing that caused it in the first place: going to the climbing gym. I went to the gym and forced myself to climb the easiest routes there on top rope, letting go at the first sign of trouble if the route proved harder than the rating implied. I did this for months until the pain was gone. The process was very boring, but it worked (I had tried a similar program outside but even seeking out easier routes there were just too many times when I ended up overgripping or talking myself into trying a slightly harder route just to have something to do or because it was a lot better than the easier routes). This was in 2014/15 and I have returned to climbing the grades I climbed prior to the injury and haven't had a recurrence. This is purely anecdotal of course and if you search the threads and get other good responses here you'll see different things that worked for different people.

don'tchuffonme wrote: Pronation exercises 3 times a day, 20 reps each.  Palm up.  Don't go too heavy.  Use a one sided dumbbell.  Start with the dumbell in a vertical position and rotate outward.  At the bottom of the rep, assist the dumbbell back up into the vertical position.  You should be able to control the motion but be struggling to control the motion by the last few reps.  

Deep tissue massage.  Use an object, fingers or thumbs or whatever else you can to dig deep and promote blood flow.  The deep tissue massage should hurt a little.  About a 3-5 on the 10 scale. 3 times per day.  

Stretch your forearms multiple times per day.

Pronation exercise with assist on lifting the weight back up is good. But my PT says that static hold is better (lower the hammer/cast-iron pan/one-sided dumbell to the end of the outward rotation and hold there until fatigue). And also, a variation: while holding the weight in the outward/pronated position, move the arm forward to extend the elbow, and bring it back to elbow near waist

Lena chita wrote:

Pronation exercise with assist on lifting the weight back up is good. But my PT says that static hold is better (lower the hammer/cast-iron pan/one-sided dumbell to the end of the outward rotation and hold there until fatigue). And also, a variation: while holding the weight in the outward/pronated position, move the arm forward to extend the elbow, and bring it back to elbow near waist

I hope I never have to try this method (meaning I hope I never have medial epicondylitis or however you spell it) again, but this sounds really good.  I'll try it if I ever end up in the unlucky circumstance again.  Thanks Lena.

This sort of exercise is what I see folks doing at PT:
https://rockandice.com/videos/climbing/dr-j-demonstrates-how-to-cure-elbow-tendonitis/

But I've also seen videos of Daniel Woods with this contraption which seems a lot more "sophisticated" than a frying pan (not sure your elbow cares either way, though):
https://www.facebook.com/dawoods89/posts/stoked-to-be-partnering-with-4arm_strong-and-repping-their-device-it-is-modeled-/1751373104887073/

Go see someone. A PT could definitely help. Could be something else, my elbow pain was a shoulder impingement, got dry needling and it was gone. 

I followed the PT recommended by Dr Julian Saunders and it cured my golfer's elbow.

Yo Tate,
First off, I'm sorry to hear you're dealing with this. I suffered from elbow pain for a year, and it sucked. I tried Dr. Julian Saunders' program, as well as PT, massage, the arm aid, an extensive rest period, and even acupuncture. Nothing worked at all. Then someone recommended a foam roller. For me, the problem was tightness in my back and triceps. It worked like a charm.

Tripper point foam roller

Good luck, and I hope you find something that works for you.

I had elbow tendonitis for six months with no improvement, and chiropractic is what worked for me.  Elbow adjustments, plus I made a conscious effort to not sleep with my hand curled under my head.

def try out a theraband