Dr. J. Michael Bennett is a Board-Certified orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine physician with many years of experience treating injuries of the elbow including biceps tendon rupture, tendinitis, golfers elbow, and tennis elbow. If you’re experiencing elbow pain or you have restricted motion of your elbow, call us at 281-633-8600 for an appointment and a medical evaluation. Dr. Bennett has a clinic in Sugar Land and another clinic in Houston, near the Houston Galleria.
Here’s the second part of Dr. Bennett’s video series talking about elbow injuries and treatments.
Here’s a transcript of the elbow injuries video:
Moving on to the stabilizers of the elbow, these are more chronic throwing injuries, such as the ulnar collateral ligament and lateral collateral ligament. The lateral collateral ligament is usually injured with an elbow dislocation; it can occasionally occur in patients that have had a fall, a traumatic injury where the elbow is dislocated and this tendon and this ligament do not heal normally. If that’s the case, this elbow becomes unstable and this joint slides out of place more frequently. It becomes a painful popping and clicking of the lateral aspects of the elbow and usually if you’re active and young and notice significant weakness and pain, we would have to repair or reconstruct this set of ligaments here. This is the lateral collateral ligament.
This is the ulnar band of the lateral collateral ligament that runs behind the elbow (reveals location on elbow model), and they help stabilize this little radius, radial capitellar joint, this little rotating bone here. With these two ligaments gone, this becomes very unstable here and the elbow may dislocate. The medial side is a more chronic elbow injury, and this is typically the ulnar collateral ligament that’s injured with baseball players and throwers.
The throwing mechanism exhibits a tremendous amount of stress on the medial aspect of the elbow which is the inside of the elbow. And that usually goes along with the type of throwing that the patient is doing. With excessive flexion and stress, it stretches out this ulnar collateral ligament, and at full extension, it continues to exhibit a significant amount of stress along this band here. This is usually what is torn in patients that have had an ulnar collateral ligament tear. If that is the case, many times we can do a procedure called a Tommy John procedure or reconstruction of the ulna collateral ligament, to stabilize this medial aspect of the elbow, and reconstruct this ligament here. That will allow the patient to resume throwing at his at his previous velocities and give the patient some stability in the elbow.
The last area that I think to address here would be the posterior aspect of the elbow. If you look at the back side of the elbow you have the olecranon tip right here (uses model), this olecranon tip has a soft fluid sac on top of this area, and that allows you to bump your elbow and rub your elbow without creating damage to the underlying bone and it helps soften this area. That’s called the olecranon bursa sac; occasionally patients will bump this accidentally and it will create a large, egg-like shaped mass or fluid sac above this area. Many times this will go away on its own with anti-inflammatories and an Ace wrap. Occasionally it needs to be aspirated, but every now and then there are patients that have these that chronically form, and they last many years. If that’s the case we can arthroscopically remove that fluid sac without making an incision, just making two small poke holes in the elbow and putting a camera in there and excising that fluid sac from the inside out. This is a relatively new procedure and it’s been very successful and with a minimally invasive approach.
The last but not least tendon that can be traumatically disruptive in the posterior elbow is the triceps tendon; this allows you to have elbow extension, gives you resistance when you’re doing your triceps curls, when you’re pushing away. Often you can get tendonitis or partial tears of this triceps tendon. Occasionally, the patient has fallen down or done some heavy lifting and may feel a large tap or pop in the posterior aspect of the elbow followed by bruising and deformity. If that’s the case then more than likely your triceps tendon may be injured. I would recommend immediately seeking evaluation from a physician and getting an MRI to evaluate the tendon because if it is injured, this tendon may indeed need to be repaired to give you that triceps strength back.
Many of these issues need to be addressed or at least diagnosed early on to prevent long-term damage. I highly recommend if you have any symptoms such as the ones I’ve just described, that you seek some sort of medical evaluation with a sports-medicine trained physician. Or you can feel free to call or contact my office for an appointment.
