Elbow pain

[Aaron]

First off, yes I did seek medical advice. About 10 months ago a questionably competent doctor diagnosed me with tennis elbow and said that it’d take 12 months to heal. After 10 months, I get very nervous and it causes me a great deal of distress when my elbow goes through periods of getting worse (it’s health is essential to keeping my job, which is my livelihood).

I intend to again seek medical advice ASAP, this time in the form of a physiotherapist but in the mean time, I thought I’d see if I could get you guys to put my mind at ease on this one (not the same as a medical opinion, obviously, but some of you guys do really know your stuff and I value your opinions).

At the start, I couldn’t do anything without it hurting. Lifting 2kg would hurt, closing a pair of secretaires (which I do many hundred times a day) would hurt. After a long time, especially after using a bandage (elbow strap), the pain dropped away a lot. I used it non-stop for a month or two but had stopped using it for 2-3 months prior to this last couple of weeks.

Recently however I’ve gone from 3-4 hours of my workday using the secretaires to 7-9 hours of my workday using them, exerting what I’d estimate to be anywhere between 2kg and 10kg of grip strength. The recent work is with the bandage.

The pain has gone back to many months ago. Near the worst I’ve felt. But only in my grip strength, I can throw around 50kg items easier than I could before doing the injury. Is this just a matter of my tendons being used a lot, making them heal faster/properly. Or is it likely to be that I’m actually ripping them to pieces. - Any way I can figure that out.

My workload should drop back to normal now and only be 3-4 hours with secretaires again, but the rest of the day will be heavy lifting but that should be fine…

This is really messing with my head because I can’t figure this thing out. It just takes so long to heal and gets worse and better all the time and causes me great distress.

What I do to look after it:
I eat cleanly (just about everything up until making my diet alkaline so it’s clean but not perfect).
Sleep 8 hours a night (it can only help).
Joint mobility drills (basically moving my elbow through it’s full range of motion about 30 times, morning and night).
Massaging any sore points in my elbow a couple of times a day (I don’t know what I’m doing, just poke until I find something that hurts and rub it a fair bit).
And I’ve been icing it several times a day, the doc tells me that this doesn’t help, but it seems to help with the pain and a friend told me to try it to speed up recovery.
Also when the pain gets bad, I’ve found if I stretch it a bit I get some slight relief.

Initially I tried using light weights, but especially lately that seems counter productive when my elbow is already overworked.

That’s about it. There’s the info on my elbow, if I’ve left something important out, let me know. Otherwise, please give me an opinion on this.
Do you think it will eventually heal if I keep doing my job?
Do you think there’s a chance of tennis elbow becoming a permanent injury, the doc said I could keep working and it’d be fine, but what if I’m doing too much, is this likely to get to a point where it wont heal from?

No, I wont take your opinion as that of a medical professional, so don’t feel burdened by responsibility. Just tell me what you know, let me know your thoughts on this.
Just to put my mind at ease, or to give me something to think about until I can get to the physiotherapist.

Thanks for your time, it is very much appreciated.

[InnerAthlete]

Hello Aaron,

In yoga the term “itis” equals rest rather than activity.
Why? Because injury coming from repetitive movement goes beyond the primary support structure, which is muscle, and in to the secondary support structure which is connective tissue (tendons and ligaments). Ergo when the over stretched is over stretched…well you see the picture. More stretching is not helpful in the bigger picture (THOUGH it may feel good in the moment).

As yoga is, in part, an awareness practice, it teaches us to properly enlist muscle fibers in our “doing” such that we do NOT go into connective tissue. This however takes a very mindful human and many of us, myself included, are not there (as my right elbow calls to me these days too).

As you well know from reading my other contributions here, the body is the diary of the life and all of these things in the physical body are merely manifestations. So the phone is ringing and we’re likely not answering. So it rings a bit louder and a bit more often. And we’re too busy to pick up.

Then it rings non-stop and we can no longer avoid or ignore it - mostly because it’s disabling in its volume and frequency. So you are being asked by your soul, through the communication line of the physical body, to examine something in your life.

But of course we identify most easily with the gross physical body therefore we believe we thirst for a pragmatic answer. So I’ll give one.

Use some heat on the elbow. Do not use ice. Heat increases molecular activity and therefore healing.

Purchase some Maha Vishgarbha oil from Tattva’s Herbs. No I do not work for them. No I do not have an affiliation with them. And no I do not get anything from this. If you refuse to do this then use organic, untoasted sesame seed oil. Rub it lovingly into the joint twice per day. Morning and evening. And do the rubbing with as much love (for 5-10 minutes) as you can muster.

If you have access to sunbreeze oil that would be very helpful in bringing energy into the joint. If you actually get it then PM me and I’ll give you specifics on how to apply it and in what frequency.

Increase the use of turmeric in your cooking. If you are familiar with the turmeric beverage, make and consume it twice per day. I share this with students but no longer on the internet because folks seem overly eager to publish it, claim it, and profit from it.

Rest the joint as much as possible, when time and life permit.

Rest YOU as much as possible. Take savasana (2 minutes or longer) several times a day.

Consume those things that support your immune function and support joint repair.

Finally, in your meditation work with breath and light to take out of the elbow and place in to the elbow. Your current yoga teacher should be able to direct you in this way, presuming he/she is fully and competently trained.

Hope this helps.

gordon