SUNDAY, Aug. 18, 2002 (HealthDayNews) -- Don't let tennis elbow serve up a grand slam of trouble.
Overuse of your arm and forearm muscles can cause abrupt or subtle tearing of the muscles and tendons around the outside of the elbow, resulting in pain. That's tennis elbow.
Just because it's called that doesn't mean it's limited to people who play tennis. It can affect other athletes and people who do leisure or work activities that require repetitive arm, elbow and wrist movement, says Dr. Stephen Silver, an orthopedic surgeon at the Insall Scott Kelly Institute for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City.
He offers the following tips to prevent tennis elbow:
Silver says the most common symptoms of tennis elbow include:
Silver says 95 percent of people with tennis elbow improve and recover with non-surgical treatment. However, such treatment is most effective if it starts as soon as symptoms appear. The longer you've had tennis elbow, the longer your rehabilitation and the greater chance you'll need surgery.
More information
The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety has all the facts about this condition.