Call our offices at 281-633-8600. Tennis elbow or lateral epicondylitis is common condition for tennis players, golfers and other people who overload these ligaments and tendons with any kind of repetitive motion. Tennis elbow treatments typically start with exercise modification and braces, but sometimes arthroscopic surgery is necessary. In this video, Houston and Sugar Land Sports Medicine Specialist Dr. J. Michael Bennett talks about what tennis elbow is and what tennis elbow treatments are available.
This is a summary of the video:
Hello and welcome. My name is Dr. J. Michael Bennett, I am an orthopedic sports medicine surgeon. I specialize in the injuries in the shoulders, elbows and knees. Today we are going to be focusing on the elbow. The number of ligaments and tendons and these ligaments and tendon can commonly be injured, particularly with any kind of repetitive motion. Now on the other side of the elbow, the lateral side is over here, and the outside of the elbow and this is where the common extensors insert, and that allows you to lift your wrist up and this is where patients would commonly get what is called lateral epicondylitis or sometimes tennis elbow.
This was originally described by tennis players because of the type of grips they were using in holding the racket. When you overload this area, the same exact happens with the lateral side as the medial side. The tendons become overloaded and these micro tears occur. You can degeneration in the tendon and this can lead to chronic pain. Once again you can treat this with bracing, exercise modification, occasionally anti- inflammatories and injections, and if it does not respond then we tend to obtain an MRI and it’s very seldom that we need to operate. If surgery is needed, when fixing the lateral side, we can do the surgery in one of two ways. We can do it arthroscopically, with two poke holes on either side of the elbow, we put a camera in there and actually debrid the area and repair it or we can make a small incision about a centimeter and half to two centimeters long, over the site to repair it with an anchor. 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 that I have just described that you seek some sort of medical evaluation with a sports medicine trained physician.
Dr. J. Michael Bennett is a Houston and Sugar Land Board Certified Orthopedic Surgeon and a Fellowship Trained Sports Medicine Specialist. His Houston orthopedics office is located near the Galleria and his Sugar Land office is located on Sweetwater Blvd., at the corner of Lexington Blvd.
