Tennis Elbow - Cause and Fix

Hi I'm Dr. Sten Ekberg and I've had lots of people ask about tennis elbow so I

wanted to shed some light on that tennis elbow is a very common complaint and we

handle that in our office with great results several times a week so first of

all what is tennis elbow so usually it's referred to when it hurts on the outside

of the elbow also known as lateral epicondylitis that means that there's an

inflammation on this piece which is called the lateral epicondyle because

the muscles that play in in tennis when you do a backhand the muscles involved

attach out here so if those muscles aren't working perfectly

then they're going to be tearing and pulling on this attachment and you get

inflammation and you get what's called tennis elbow but then we want to ask why

doesn't that muscle work properly and what is needed for it to work properly

so a muscle is what stabilizes any joint typically in most joints you have about

90% of the stability from muscles and 10% from ligaments and other structures

so the muscle is crucial but the muscle is controlled by a signals from the

brain so in order for the brain to know exactly when to send the right signal

down to the millisecond the brain needs lots and lots of information that

information is called proprioception so the brain receives information from the

muscle in the joint and then the more and the more crisp the more information

and the better than information is the better the brain can control that muscle

and the neuromuscular function as we call it so the brain needs to do that

down to the millimeter and down to the millisecond and if that works then the

timing and the pull on that attach and is so precise that we never develop

any problems but if that muscle pulls a little bit off timing we're a little too

much or not enough now that joint is unstable and it starts

kind of flopping around a little bit and now it gives irritated inflamed and we

start developing problems so then people have various different solutions so you

can put a strap on it and what the strap does it stabilizes that tendon

attachment a little bit and it actually increases the proprioception a little

bit so we have less flopping around if you will and that can help but it's not

really addressing the source of the problem because the problem is the brain

isn't quite sure what to do with that muscle you could take ibuprofen you

could take an anti-inflammatory and that could also help but it's still not

addressing the source of the problem it's a temporary fix of the inflammation

but next time you go do it it's gonna start all over again some people say

that it could be due to a pinched nerve that's a very common idea but if you

have a pinched nerve then you're typically going to have a different

presentation you're gonna have muscle weakness you're gonna have numbness and

tingling and you're gonna have a different presentation and we can check

for all those things so there would be no doubt once we examine what the actual

problem is some people do massage or physical therapy and those are actually

pretty good ideas because massage and physical therapy will increase that

proprioception so that the brain gets more information the question is is it

precise enough to give the brain exactly what it needs or does it just increase

it generally and kind of get the job done so we use something called muscle

testing and applied kinesiology and we test all these muscles very very

specifically and we come with very precise solutions so that we actually

address the source of the problem get the brain the information it needs and

we stabilize that joint almost immediately so thank you very much for

your attention if you have any other questions I'll be happy to see if I

could answer that we plan to do more of these videos and try to give people more

of the real answers to things going on so if you have any questions please let

us know you can email them you can post them on on Facebook and we'll be more

than happy to address them thanks so much