Tennis Elbow

Tennis elbow is a painful disorder of the elbow. Although tennis players may develop tennis elbow, this term is misleading because most people who get it do not play tennis. Tennis elbow is often related to other types of activities, such as painting, hammering, and lifting.

Tennis elbow is associated with jobs that require repeated or forceful movements of the fingers, wrist, and forearm. It can develop when exerting too much force at once or small amounts of force over a long time period. Movements associated with the development of tennis elbow include:

• simultaneous rotation of the forearm and bending of the wrist
• stressful gripping of an object in combination with inward or outward movement of the forearm
• jerky, throwing motions
• hammering movements

The symptoms of tennis elbow are tenderness and pain at the lateral epicondyle (the bony structure on the outside of the elbow). The pain can spread down the forearm to the middle and ring fingers. The forearm muscles may also feel sore, and it may be difficult to straighten your arm. The pain may feel worse when the wrist is bent backwards, when rotating the forearm and hand, as occurs when using a screw driver, or when grasping an object, such as a milk carton. The discomfort can last from a few weeks to years. If sufficient time is not allowed for the strained tendon to heal, the tendon may be permanently weakened.