Hi I'm Dr. Sten Ekberg and I've had lots of people ask about tennis elbow so I
wanted to shed some light on that tennis elbow is a very common complaint and we
handle that in our office with great results several times a week so first of
all what is tennis elbow so usually it's referred to when it hurts on the outside
of the elbow also known as lateral epicondylitis that means that there's an
inflammation on this piece which is called the lateral epicondyle because
the muscles that play in in tennis when you do a backhand the muscles involved
attach out here so if those muscles aren't working perfectly
then they're going to be tearing and pulling on this attachment and you get
inflammation and you get what's called tennis elbow but then we want to ask why
doesn't that muscle work properly and what is needed for it to work properly
so a muscle is what stabilizes any joint typically in most joints you have about
90% of the stability from muscles and 10% from ligaments and other structures
so the muscle is crucial but the muscle is controlled by a signals from the
brain so in order for the brain to know exactly when to send the right signal
down to the millisecond the brain needs lots and lots of information that
information is called proprioception so the brain receives information from the
muscle in the joint and then the more and the more crisp the more information
and the better than information is the better the brain can control that muscle
and the neuromuscular function as we call it so the brain needs to do that
down to the millimeter and down to the millisecond and if that works then the
timing and the pull on that attach and is so precise that we never develop
any problems but if that muscle pulls a little bit off timing we're a little too
much or not enough now that joint is unstable and it starts
kind of flopping around a little bit and now it gives irritated inflamed and we
start developing problems so then people have various different solutions so you
can put a strap on it and what the strap does it stabilizes that tendon
attachment a little bit and it actually increases the proprioception a little
bit so we have less flopping around if you will and that can help but it's not
really addressing the source of the problem because the problem is the brain
isn't quite sure what to do with that muscle you could take ibuprofen you
could take an anti-inflammatory and that could also help but it's still not
addressing the source of the problem it's a temporary fix of the inflammation
but next time you go do it it's gonna start all over again some people say
that it could be due to a pinched nerve that's a very common idea but if you
have a pinched nerve then you're typically going to have a different
presentation you're gonna have muscle weakness you're gonna have numbness and
tingling and you're gonna have a different presentation and we can check
for all those things so there would be no doubt once we examine what the actual
problem is some people do massage or physical therapy and those are actually
pretty good ideas because massage and physical therapy will increase that
proprioception so that the brain gets more information the question is is it
precise enough to give the brain exactly what it needs or does it just increase
it generally and kind of get the job done so we use something called muscle
testing and applied kinesiology and we test all these muscles very very
specifically and we come with very precise solutions so that we actually
address the source of the problem get the brain the information it needs and
we stabilize that joint almost immediately so thank you very much for
your attention if you have any other questions I'll be happy to see if I
could answer that we plan to do more of these videos and try to give people more
of the real answers to things going on so if you have any questions please let
us know you can email them you can post them on on Facebook and we'll be more
than happy to address them thanks so much