Beating Elbow Pain without Surgery

Elbow pain can really cramp a busy lifestyle. Healthy joints in the arms enable us to do any number of activities, from self-care basics like eating and bathing to work-related movements like typing, lifting, carrying and more. When you’ve sustained an elbow injury, either through force or repetitive movement, the pain can radiate down to the fingertips and upward into the neck, chest, and back, but surgery might not be your only option for pain relief. What are some non-surgical treatments offered by HealthStar Clinic for your elbow pain relief?

Elbow Injuries and Pain

Elbow pain usually starts as a dull ache and then progresses into a sharper, piercing pain, because elbow injuries are usually caused by overuse, repetitive movements, and poor conditioning in the muscles above and below the joint. In many cases, pain in the joint itself is caused by tendonitis, which is inflammation of the soft tissues that attach muscle to bone. What treatment options can help?

Physical Therapy

One of the best options for treating a wide variety of causes of elbow pain is physical therapy. In many cases, elbow pain has a gradual onset, because it can come from repetitive movements with poor strength, conditioning, or even poor biomechanics. A physical therapist will be able to help you begin to build strength and stability in and around the joint, balance muscles and range of motion, and even ensure you are moving correctly to avoid future injury.

Non-Steroidal Injections

If injections are recommended for the most efficient elbow pain relief, HealthStar’s medical team tries to work with a combination of physical therapy and anesthetic medication injections first. This can allow patients to perform the recommended exercises with minimal pain, and can even provide diagnostic information about the source of the pain. Non-steroidal injections offer patients long term pain relief and a path toward healing the initial injury. 

Low Dose Steroid Injections

In some acute cases, a patient’s best option for elbow pain relief will be a low-dose steroid injection. By rapidly minimizing the painful irritation of inflammation in the tissues surrounding the injury, patients can begin to use the joint to participate in further diagnostic evaluations and physical therapy treatments. At HealthStar Clinic, low-dose steroid injections will be provided with the lowest, safest amount added to an anesthetic for effective relief, in conjunction with other healing modalities.

Nerve Blocks for Elbow Pain

Sometimes the source of arm and elbow pain isn’t even in the arm itself, but in the neck. It’s easy for nerves that branch out from the spine to get compressed, and this can lead to tingling or pain that radiates down the arms. Nerve Blocks are injections in a specific area around the spine to treat a chronic pain condition without the side effects that may come along with other treatment methods.

Ready for a Medical Team that’s on Your Side?

At HealthStar Clinic, we offer our patients a team approach to compassionate care using the expertise of a variety of medical professionals. This allows us to come up with the most effective and comprehensive plan to treat your condition or injury under one roof, which saves you money and helps you find fast pain relief without with necessity of risky surgeries and addictive prescriptions. Call today to learn more about the incredible options available for your care!