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Kalimon
Social climber
Ridgway, CO
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Jul 31, 2016 - 08:20am PT
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Hello nita,
I would not say that I cured anything . . . there is always a possibility of symptoms recurring if I overuse my hands and wrists. I give most of the credit to Dr. John Unger in Montrose. He performed deep tissue/chiropractic work that aided in my healing.
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pb
Sport climber
Sonora Ca
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Jul 31, 2016 - 08:33am PT
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ping pong?
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peterbeal
Boulder climber
Colorado
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I have just been dealing with a case of tennis elbow in my left elbow, probably brought on by too much gym bouldering, phone use and who knows what else. It appears to be backing off so here are my suggestions:
IMO deep painful massage in the muscles of your upper and lower arms is critical to clearing out the everpresent and overbearing tension that is screwing up your tendons. Climbing is not necessarily the problem and in fact I kept climbing at a low level in the gym through the entire process. Blood flow is critical to get the process of healing going.
Second, exercise with weights is not likely to help until you get rid of the underlying cause, which is probably persistent muscle tension. So skip the reverse curls until you've had some work done. I did a ton of those and didn't move the needle one bit. The flexbar is the same deal. Break up that muscle tissue first. Get the Stick and go to work, five minutes a day, going over your elbows and forearms especially.
Stretching could help, especially the biceps, triceps, and brachioradialis. They are typically tighter than a drum in most climbers and need to be broken up and then relaxed and stretched out.
Ice is not useful but hot/cold treatment is helpful in getting fluid moving. Drugs will not fix the underlying problems. Don't use them.
Accept that you need to get weak for a little while for things to heal up. I'm weaker than I have been for a long time but just did a proper hangboard workout for the first time in 2 months. I'll take that over the persistent nagging aggravating pain of tennis elbow.
PM me if you want to discuss further
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nita
Social climber
chica de chico, I don't claim to be a daisy.
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*
Kalimon,
Thank you for your reply...always good to know alternatives to surgery.
Cheers
Nita..
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ron gomez
Trad climber
fallbrook,ca
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Supination/pronation, if that doesn't help look further up the chain...shoulder impingement or cervical area.
Peace
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Fritz
Social climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Oct 23, 2016 - 09:44am PT
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Upthread Blahblah mentions this product.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsKGbqA9aNo
After an internet search for possible cures, it does appear that a lot of physical therapists like the Thera-Band FLEXBAR.
Here's a link to a NY Times article on the "miracle-cures" occuring with its use.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/phys-ed-an-easy-fix-for-tennis-elbow/?_r=0
I bought one early Sept. & with fairly good diligence (15 or so reps twice to three times a day) my chronic tennis elbow has been steadily improving. I'm also doing self deep-tisssue massage & some other stretches.
The pain is still there, but it is vastly less. I may even be able to fly fish soon.
Here's a more detailed Youtube video on the subject.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Amazingly positive feedback on Amazon.com too.
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smith curry
climber
nashville,TN
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Oct 23, 2016 - 02:43pm PT
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Yup, thera band and also weight lifting---Rest never worked for me. Super light climbing for a while
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Oct 23, 2016 - 03:41pm PT
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When it was "bad" I would have gladly cut it off with a machete.
Susan is spot-on.
There is no "miracle cure." Prevention and (if necessary) treatment varies by person. However, one thing seems to work in all cases....
Amputation
At the neck
That cures all ills
Guaranteed
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Matt's
climber
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Oct 23, 2016 - 07:15pm PT
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after a lot of problems with golfer's elbow, doing therapy with these bands helped a lot:
http://www.powerfingers.com
at least in my case, i am never "cured" of the problem-- I just have to be diligent about doing the exercises to keep the pain at bay.
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Flip Flop
climber
Earth Planet, Universe
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Oct 23, 2016 - 08:34pm PT
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After a fierce elbow dislocation, a bit of climbing and 30 years manual labor, I have elbows.
Keeping my arms straighter at night seems to keep things from tightening up and feels like better circulation in my arms and hands.
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JohnnyG
climber
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Oct 24, 2016 - 06:37am PT
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For me, rest and then rebuild worked, and continues to work when I have a flare up. I had tendonitis/tendonosis for years, thought I was resting, but I wasn't really resting it. And I wasn't coming back slowly.
It takes 4 weeks:
Week one: Rest. Total total rest. Goal is to reduce inflammation and let curing begin. Don't do anything with your hand that you don't have to. Don't bike, ski, lift heavy grocery bags, etc.
Don't massage, don't stretch. Just let it be for one full week.
I ice frequently and I also eat a lot of ibuprofen during this first week to help reduce inflammation.
Week two: Very controlled range of motion type exercises. Goal is to get blood flow. Nothing stressful. Just get it warmed up. Open and close hand without putty. Move arms around. Do a pushup and a pullup or two per day toward the end of the week. (Assuming a single pushup or pullup is something very easy for you)
Week 3: Now building up a little more. Bouldering way below your limit in the gym, for short sessions. This is just a ramped up version of getting the blood flowing. But don't go on a long easy trad climb. Keep it super mellow. You goal is to never tweak your elbow at all.
Week 4: Now building even more. Try some harder or longer boulder problems with the occasional hard hold. By the end of this week I found I could start climbing near my limit, but I was still being easy on the elbow. Nothing too brutal. No mega pumps or super tweaky holds. Again, the goal is make sure you don't tweak your elbow as you rebuild
Week 5: back to crushing
For some 4 week off of real climbing is unbearable...but 4 weeks is way less than dealing with this for many months or years.
TWO OTHER TIPS:
1. Reduce the mental stress: Some people, even doctors, claim that your mental stresses can be expressed through things like back pain and tendinitis. I read Dr Sarno and I liked his book. He may be a quack, but it helped me let go of some of my stress.
2. Red meat: a J-Tree hippy told me he had severe problems with teninitis until he ate red meat. So I eat a nice steaks when I have tendinitis flare ups, because, well, why not.
hope this helps
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chainsaw
Trad climber
CA
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Oct 24, 2016 - 11:47am PT
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Peterbeal is right about agressive painful massage. The best treatment Ive found is to use your thumb to agressively express fluid from lymphnodes around the affected area. This recirculates white blood cells and macrophages that get clogged up in the lymph system due to inflammation. Specifically, use the thumb to squeaze the back side of your forearm between the ulna and radius. There will be a painful area where the blockage occurs. Take the pain. Even try to embrace it as a healing process to devour that pain as you push fluid back up your forearm towards the elbow. Once a day is necesary to keep the lymph node(s) circulation open. After a week of this therapy you should notice a difference. I also recommend style modification. Try to use open hand crimps whenever possible. This technique distributes the strain of pulling more evenly across the skeletal system. Avoid the "spider bite" crimp whenever possible. I call it that because the fingers dig in like fangs and you will develop pain like a spiderbite if you do it too much. Indulge in proper warmup and cool down routines always! And vitamin C and Ibuprofin at night after your sesh.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 24, 2016 - 09:52pm PT
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^^^ This procedure worked for me 45 years ago when I first developed climber's elbow. Find the trigger point below the elbow and apply great pressure with the thumb. Then coast along for a few days. After doing this a couple of times the sharp pain changed to more of a tolerable ache, then gradually disappeared. I stayed away from climbing for several months.
Later, when I could feel it beginning to return I would press down on my flat hand from above, stretching things around the inside of the elbow.
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skitch
Gym climber
Bend Or
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 24, 2016 - 10:15pm PT
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After an entire summer of elbow pain on the outside, is that tennis??? Golfers??? I finally am starting to feel some relief. I had pretty much given up trying to fix it and decided to just try to live with the pain. I have a little kids bike, I mean BMX bike that I like to screw around with sometimes. The bike has pegs so I like to try and grind boxes at the local skatepark. After an hour of constantly bunny hopping up to grind my biceps were quite tired, and for the next 3 days I couldn't extend my arms fully with out some pain in my biceps. Thankfully the bicep pain went away like most muscle soreness, and it has taken 90% of the elbow pain! I went climbing yesterday and I expected to wake up this morning with the pain back, but it's almost entirely gone. . . gotta work those opposing muscles. . .
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Gunkie
Trad climber
Valles Marineris
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Jul 29, 2017 - 11:06am PT
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So I'm in the midst of having tennis elbow; the outside of the elbow pain (inside is golfer's elbow). Two weeks of suffering and I finally bought a $12 forearm strap with a little air bubble that presses on the tendon to relieve pressure on the connection to the bone.
This is like the magic cure. I can still do stuff and not re-injure it like I did the other night pushing Romex cable through a buried conduit. It still hurts and I'm NOT pushing Romex or doing any additional stupid to irritate the injury, but I can put the pain on the back burner because it's not very acute anymore and let it heal.
Hopefully I'll be ready to surf the first real tropical swell we get on the east coast this season and put a few more pitches in at the Gunks.
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Brian More
climber
Rancho Palos Verdes, CA
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Jul 29, 2017 - 07:25pm PT
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Cure for tennis elbow: push ups
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Bruce Morris
Trad climber
Belmont, California
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Jul 30, 2017 - 12:35am PT
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I had good success with glucosamine one time and one time only for a sore elbow. It worked quickly.
Trying it again sometime later seemed to produce no effect.
Classic placebo response. Works the first and/or second time. Then, zilch.
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