Golfers elbow

[Saltydawg15]

Been dealing with this for a few months and so far not much relief. Any insight on what others have done to beat this? Also did you continue playing golf during this or did you shut it down? 

[erikro]

I have found wrist curls and grips exercises to be effective. After I will ice. Before bed I massage the area with tiger balm and put a compression sleeve on. I have been able to play the entire time.

[phizzy30]

17 minutes ago, erikro said:

I have found wrist curls and grips exercises to be effective. After I will ice. Before bed I massage the area with tiger balm and put a compression sleeve on. I have been able to play the entire time.

Those exercises can be effective for it, but are more geared towards building bigger and stronger forearms.  For golfers elbow, the only thing that will make it go away is rest.  Yes you can play through it, but if you don't catch your irons perfect it will hurt.  Ice and NSAID in the meanwhile will reduce inflammation. 

[erikro]

The exercise help stretch and strengthen the inflamed tissue. But it’s one part of what I do. I have have found the combination of everything I mentioned not only allows me to keep playing but has also improved my golfers elbow to the point that it isn’t always present.

[miamistomp]

 Theraband, cbd balm and don't hit off mats

[b_f_c_99]

This may seem odd but here is what helps me.  I do a planking exercise with forearms on the ground for 15 seconds or so and the I basically do a push up into a raised butt in the air position that stretches your calves.

 

From there I do another planking thing that looks like this.  Both arms for 15 seconds or so.

 

 

Works great for me.  When I push up from that initial plank my elbows just snap and crunch in a good way.  Hard to explain.

 

[GrandStranded]

Until last year, I never knew there was a difference between golfers and tennis elbow.

Turns out if the pain is on the inside of the elbow, it’s golfer’s, the outside is tennis.

Rest is the best cure, and it can take from weeks to months to heal. Yes, you can try to play through it, but listen to your body, you can tear or fray ligament or tendon(?) near the bone in some cases.

[Left Rough]

3 hours ago, miamistomp said:

 Theraband, cbd balm and don't hit off mats

 

Agree.  Theraband has a very specific exercise for golfers elbow that helps tremendously.  And mats severely aggravate it.  CBD didn't really help me compared to something like SalonPas but the combo of these things got me back in action.

[thesamwise]

I had to take a year off because of this, so if it's aggravated, you have to rest it for a while before you do anything else.

 

Theraband every day. Start with the easiest one you can do without pain and then progress to the others. Make sure to do both arms.

 

Yep, don't hit off mats. If I hit off mats, I can feel my golfer's elbow getting activated in a handful of swings.

 

Finally, and everyone says this because it's true, get graphite shafts. I was playing iron shafts that weren't particularly stiff (NS PRO 950), but it still hurt. That all stopped when I got the Recoils. I'm serious--it's night and day.

[Saltydawg15]

Thank you for all of the different experiences. Mine got aggravated after I committed to getting my sand game better and was hitting hundreds of balls out of the sand. I have tried PT but was not impressed with what was being done and had no improvement. 
 

I have played through it up to now. At first I was swinging at 75% to help with the pain and as the pain lessened I went back to swinging 100%. The thing that aggravates it the most is if I try to hit golf balls on the range, playing while still painful is not excruciating.

 

Right now the elbow is aggravated so I’m going to take a couple weeks off and try acupuncture. I am also going to start doing the Theraband three times a day as this fixed tennis elbow a couple of years ago for me.

 

my biggest issue with taking off extended time besides not wanting to is I have two golf trips planned this summer.

[phizzy30]

9 hours ago, erikro said:

The exercise help stretch and strengthen the inflamed tissue. But it’s one part of what I do. I have have found the combination of everything I mentioned not only allows me to keep playing but has also improved my golfers elbow to the point that it isn’t always present.

Strengthen yes.  You can stretch the forearms by doing static stretching by bending your thumb and other fingers backwards which is what I do. 

[i*windows]

rest is best then

(28) golfers elbow - YouTube

[betarhoalphadelta]

I've found these exercises to help quite a bit: https://www.rheumatology4u.com/tennisex.pdf

 

Also, Voltaren gel is a topical NSAID which used to be prescription but went OTC last year. I find that helps quite a bit as well. Typically if I can tell it's flaring a little (which happens when I play or hit the range too often in short succession) I'll take some ibuprofen and use the Voltaren on the golfer's elbow area before a round / range session.

 

And if it's getting bad... Rest. This isn't muscle soreness that you can just play through, it's aggravation of the tendon. It has to take time to heal, not just recover. 

 

The good news about "rest" is that it can force you to practice short game 😉 

 

[jsn]

All you need to know about rehabbing elbows here: http://drjuliansaunders.com/dodgy-elbows/

Like others have echoed.. you may be in for a long recovery time.