Golfers Elbow

Golfer’s elbow, also known as medial epicondylitis or medial elbow pain, is one of the most common causes of pain on the inside of the elbow. People of any age can get Golfer’s elbow but it mainly affects people between the ages of 40 and 60 with males and females equally affected.

It is usually caused by overuse of the muscles and tendons near the elbow joint, especially repeated tasks involving gripping, rotating the arm and flexing the wrist. The main symptoms are pain on the inside of the elbow and into the forearm when gripping, twisting, or lifting the arm.

Risk factors for Golfer’s elbow include smoking, obesity, repetitive tasks and sports such as golf, tennis, bowling.

Golfer’s elbow is generally a self-limiting condition, although duration of symptoms can vary between several weeks and several months.

Advice to help manage your symptoms:

• Rest and modify your activities to avoid excess gripping or repeated wrist bending/twisting activities (this may involve changing activities at work etc.)
• If having to lift, keep objects close to your body keeping elbows and wrists in a fixed position.
• Wearing an epicondyle clasp has proven useful in some cases to offload the tendon during aggravating activities
• Use a cold compress, such as a bag of ice wrapped in a damp towel over the painful area. Leave for 15mins, checking the skin regularly. Repeat this 3-4 times per day.
• Using pain relief such as Paracetamol, Ibuprofen or Ibuprofen gel may help to reduce the pain at your elbow and allow your preform exercises properly. Do not exceed the daily allowance of these medicines and consult your GP/Pharmacist if considering starting a new pain medication
• Reduce/quit smoking – it is thought that smoking can interfere with circulation to tendons, meaning they are at increased risk if injury.
• Weight loss – being overweight can increase the number of inflammatory molecules in the body which can lead to local and systemic inflammation within the body and therefore poorer healing and resolution of pain.
• Injections are noted to provide short term benefit for pain; however they do not resolve the underlying tendon issue and long term they have poor outcomes and relapses of pain are very common, with associated risk of tendon rupture following steroid injections.
• Surgery is only considered in extremely severe and persistent cases of Golfer’s Elbow and only when conservative measures have not been effective.
• Exercises are important to keep your arm moving and prevent the elbow becoming stiff and weak. A progression of loading exercises are required, which can be accessed here or can be downloaded from the right hand side of this page