Despite the name, you don’t have to be a tennis player to suffer from this painful arm injury. Tennis players are certainly some of the most likely people to get injured in this way, with as many as one out of two getting tennis elbow, but it also affects plumbers, butchers, typists and anyone else who commonly make certain repeated motions with their arms and wrists. Believe it or not, even video game players sometimes get tennis elbow from game controller manipulations. It happens in every age group, but statistics show that those in their 30s and 40s face higher risks than other age groups.
1. Pain on the upper forearm
A persistent pain in the upper forearm is one of the classic tennis elbow symptoms. This pain usually occurs on the outer arm just beneath the elbow. Sufferers commonly describe this sensation as a burning pain. However, similar symptoms happen with certain other illness, so everyone is recommended to consult their doctor. They will be pleased to get a tennis elbow diagnosis since although it can be quite painful, it still represents a mild injury that often requires no medical intervention.
2. Pains increase with activities
Someone with tennis elbow immediately notices that certain activities become very painful to them. Commonly they experience this pain if they raise or bend their arms and even while performing simple tasks like holding a pen and writing a note. They also often get these pains when they need to turn the forearm to open a door; it hurts when they need to move their wrist forcefully. There is no need to lift a heavy item to feel this pain but even lifting up something as light as fork becomes very painful.
3. Normally rest brings a measure of relief
In the majority of cases those with less severe cases of tennis elbow notice that their pain lessens significantly when they rest. Someone in this situation has no need to seek any medical advice, but if rest brings no real relief, or if they find themselves unable to move the elbow or lose feeling in it, they need to contact a doctor urgently.
4. Pains often vary according to the time of day
Sufferers from tennis elbow often notice that the elbow of their injured arm feels very stiff and aches when they wake up in the morning. As the day proceeds, this stiffness and aching lessen somewhat, but it still continues at some level.
5. The nature of the pain changes
The tennis elbow pain often starts off like a burning ache located on the outer forearm and elbow, but it starts to grow more intense. If the arm gets no rest the pain sometimes goes down all the way to the wrist. In the opposite direction, these pains might also ascend the upper section of the arm towards the shoulder. Everything depends on the source of the original injury and subsequent activities using this hand, so it is impossible to describe how the pains will develop in every instance.
6. Handshakes are no fun
The handshake is one of our most common and accepted social interactions. This sign of respect or good will is expected when meeting customers or public figures, but for anyone with tennis elbow, this simple act becomes a very painful procedure. It is not only shaking hands that hurt them, but they experience a similar kind of pain squeezing an orange or some other object. The best way to avoid the pain and social embarrassment are to let the other person know about the hand injury in advance, so they will not get offended.
7. Increased sensitivity to pressure
You might think that handshakes are so painful to someone with tennis elbow because it pains them to move their hand in this way but this is only half of the picture. In addition to the pain, this particular wrist movement causes the pressure of the other person’s hand further exacerbates the pain. Any pressure on the affected area serves to increase their pain. The source of this pain is an inflamed tendon where the muscle is attached to the bone on the outer side of the elbow.
8. These pains start all of a sudden
With sport and most other injuries, the party involved easily makes the connection between an injury they suffer and the pain that comes on but in many instances of tennis elbow, there is no such link. This happens because the person affected might not have noticed whatever action or event led to this injury. Furthermore, symptoms often appear three or four days down the line, so this makes it that much harder to work out the source of the problem. The fact that pains usually develop gradually is another factor that distances the complaint from its cause to impede easy identification.
9. Pains go away without treatment
Although nobody disputes that tennis elbow pains are very painful and interfere with people’s working and sporting lives they still deserve to be classed as a mild injury. In the vast majority of cases, these pains decline and eventually cease altogether without the need for any medical intervention. If you rest the injured arm sufficiently expect a complete healing within a couple of months although there are extreme cases where tennis elbow continues over a couple of years. The more the injured person tries to use this arm the longer the healing takes.
10. It becomes harder to grip everyday objects
The way tennis elbow weakens a person’s grip is one of the most significant ways to which it interferes with their normal life. If it was simply a matter of difficulties holding a racquet, it is easy to put up with, but it makes it harder to hold all kinds of objects people regularly use. Any actions that require some strength of the hand are no longer moves performed with little forethought but challenges. The actions in question include such simple tasks as gripping light objects such as a cup or screwdriver.
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