Symptoms and Diagnosing Tennis Elbow

The term Tennis elbow is medically known as lateral epicondylitis. It is an inflammation of the tendons that attach the forearm to the arm bone, the usual stress point is around the elbow, and hence the term tennis elbow. What exactly causes tennis elbow, is still completely not understood, some people believe that the reason is the frequent wear and tear of the elbow joints, others believe that the muscles that are responsible for the cocking the wrist back are to blame (this group of muscles is also called the extensor carpi radialis brevis).However there is a very good understanding of the way tennis elbow can be controlled, and also what steps can be taken to reduce the pain experienced by people who are suffering from tennis elbow pain.

Symptoms of Tennis Elbow

Tennis elbow is usually associated with a pain on the outside of the elbow, this pain may be asymptomatic and is usually worsened when the patient attempts to lift weights, or attempts to grip objects or engage the wrist muscles. In chronic cases, the patient experiences pain and sometimes a burning sensation when he carries out even simplest tasks like lifting a mug of coffee.

Occasional there is also tenderness of the elbow associated with the pain, and the characteristic pain as mentioned earlier usually subsides after a period of rest. In addition to the typical pain around the elbow, there is also a rarer shooting pain that is experienced down the forearm, sometimes the pain is completely asymptomatic and it does not require a person to carry heavy weights or to exercise the arm to feel the pain.

In chronic cases, swelling and bruising of the elbow has also been reported, if so one should not delay a visit to a doctor, as swelling and bruising around the elbow region are usually the body's warning system, and the problem should be treated before there is any more damage done to the elbow. There are also more rare and more obvious symptoms like not being able to straighten the arm at all, however more often than not, patients usually get medical help before the tennis elbow reaches such an advanced stage.

Diagnosing Tennis Elbow

The first step in the diagnosing of tennis elbow is usually to get an X-ray done, unfortunately more often than not, the X-ray of patients suffering from tennis elbow is normal. It requires a specialist or an experienced doctor to diagnose the problem based on the symptoms that the patient is experiencing, Therefore correct reporting of symptoms is an important tool in diagnosing the exact type of tennis elbow that the patient is experiencing.

Once a clinical problem is ruled out, it is usually a better idea to go to a specialist like an orthopaedic surgeon to get further diagnosis of the problem, as there are numerous sub categories of tennis elbow and based on these sub-categories the treatment, and further diagnostic techniques usually vary. Another reason to go to a specialist is that there are other problems like tunnel carpel syndrome that cause similar symptoms, hence it is very important that the problem is diagnosed correctly.

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