August, 2020
NEWSLETTER
TENNIS ELBOW OR GOLFER’S ELBOW; TAKE YOUR PICK
Whether you have pain or have been suffering for a long time, seeing a physical therapist at Appalachian Physical Therapy, Inc. can help you return to a more active and pain-free life. Give us a call at: • Broadway: 540-901-9501 • Harrisonburg: 540-209-8977 • Pinehurst: 910-215-0541
I know, I know, a lot of folks who have these disorders have never picked up a stick with a racket or club on the end of it. Sowhy in theworldwould these problems be named as such? You know it could beworse. We have specific fractures named after orthopedist who studied them and we have physicians who have actually taken their partners to court to get their name listed first on a disorder that carries both their names. So actually getting a name of a sport for a disorder is not too bad when looking at it from that perspective. In a nutshell, it is all about having a disorder that has involvement of your forearm flexors (golfer’s elbow) as opposed to extensors (tennis elbow). The bottom line is we all use our hands and arms to performmany activities throughout our day. From being on a computer entering in data to a brickmason, these folks are constantly using their forearmmusculature. Even a seamstress to folk’s texting on their cell phones, all use their hands and arms a great deal. Most of the time it is not a problem however anyone who uses their arms/hands a great deal all the time will usually suffer fromone or both of these at one point in time. Now we in the medical fields have to be able to name this so we have these knobby ends to the humerus or your upper armbone called epicondyles. Basically these knobs and associated ridges are great for muscle attachment. It is here at the attachment where the stress is transferred from the muscles to the bone. Thus with problems with your flexors or golfer’s elbow, we term your problem medial epicondylitis. For tennis elbow, you would be treated for lateral epicondylitis. Feel smarter now? I sure do. There are somany structures that are located in our forearms, it would fill up books to share all of this in this short article. Just know you have one small muscle or part of amuscle and maybe two that control your finger bending down into your palm as well as extending back
straight. Then there are those that turn your palm down and back up along with themuscles that bend and straighten your elbow. All of these are balanced and help to enable smooth coordinatedmotion from one extreme to the other. Now to make it all interesting and mixing things up a bit, walk a dog on a leash and we can’t forget the cat or squirrel that runs in front of them. Now it does not look good to have a dog chasing a cat or squirrel in public so here we have a person that probably uses their arm a lot and we have a nice stretch as
the person is resisting getting dragged down the street by a dog having fun. They end up with pain andmaybe even a little tingling and numbness along their elbow and voila, we have Tennis/Golfer’s elbow. Makes sense doesn’t it? I thought so. This spring, it may have come from digging in flower beds. It could come from all those emails you have not had time to delete so you sat down in front of your computer these past few months with a little extra time from being furloughed due to the pandemic. Maybe you have been doing more around the house and started those honey do lists like painting, power washing, refinishing furniture and the last thing you have done is playing tennis or golf. Yep, there you have it. Plain as day. (continued inside)
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