Elbows & Acupuncture

I know a few on this forum have recommended acupuncture for treatment of tennis/golfer's elbow injuries and I was wondering how many treatments have been needed to fix the injury.
I have had two treatments and my acupuncturist said if it isn't resolved after two there is no point continuing acupuncture; however I have heard that some people have taken up to nine treatments before it was fixed.

So what's the general consensus?

I can't see how someone could advise you that it only takes two sessions.

Tendonitis is different in severity from case to case. I have had it several times in my life and each time it was different and took varying amounts of time to heal. To give yourself the best chance, you need to be stretching all the surrounding muscles(forearms, biceps, triceps) as often as 4 times a day in order to release the tension placed on the tendons in conjunction with the acupuncture. It will also depend on your normal daily activities. What you do for work, how much rest you're getting, your diet, your posture etc.. The list can go on and on. So in my opinion, you're acupuncturists statement of "if not fixed after 2 sessions, don't bother!" is ludicrous.

Time to look for a different acupuncturist mate.

i use a simple velcro strap that you put on the forearm muscle , with a small amount of pressure the angle the tendon that goes through the elbow is changed slightly so the irritation is relieved.

Themo Skin sell them.

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Zeusman said..
I can't see how someone could advise you that it only takes two sessions.

Tendonitis is different in severity from case to case. I have had it several times in my life and each time it was different and took varying amounts of time to heal. To give yourself the best chance, you need to be stretching all the surrounding muscles(forearms, biceps, triceps) as often as 4 times a day in order to release the tension placed on the tendons in conjunction with the acupuncture. It will also depend on your normal daily activities. What you do for work, how much rest you're getting, your diet, your posture etc.. The list can go on and on. So in my opinion, you're acupuncturists statement of "if not fixed after 2 sessions, don't bother!" is ludicrous.

Time to look for a different acupuncturist mate.

I am having physio including TENS treatment and doing plenty of stretching/strengthening exercises. But I will try another acupuncturist and see how I go after a few more treatments.
Thanks for the tips guys.

I had "it" in my right elbow for about 8 months, wore the elbow strap & did lots of stretching & the pain ever so slowly went away.
Then, I got it in my left elbow but being right handed it didn't take as long to recover.

In my case, acupuncture did not help at all & the stretching was the major factor influencing my recovery.

Short of sitting on the couch, are there any preemptive exercises/stretches you can do to avoid tennis elbow?

Don't stretch a tennis elbow. Roll with a ball the tight forearm muscles, get a rolling pin and roll along the muscle but don't stretch. Stretching a tendinopthy will usually cause more irritation of the tendon. Accupuncture and dry needling are different beasts. Most physio's do dry needling but may 'explain' it is accupuncture. In my experience i've found dry needling to be effective - but sore..Are you doing any eccentric wrist exercises ?

dry needling hurts so much but the rewards are so worth it..
Ive had acu and dry needles on elbow, calf, and ITB issues. found Acu was enough to fix the elbow issues back when I was rock climbing alot.

Dry needling on the calf's was one of the most painful thing ive gone through before. had majorly tight calfs from over training for a running Marathon to the point where I could not walk with out pain let alone run. after one session I physically could not walk out of the practise after having it done on both legs at once. 2 days of hobbling around 3/4 days I was totally free of all pain and ran 30km training run within the week with no pain.


I have a cricket ball I use to roll elbow's on works a treat.

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CarterSUPhysio said..
Don't stretch a tennis elbow. Roll with a ball the tight forearm muscles, get a rolling pin and roll along the muscle but don't stretch. Stretching a tendinopthy will usually cause more irritation of the tendon. Accupuncture and dry needling are different beasts. Most physio's do dry needling but may 'explain' it is accupuncture. In my experience i've found dry needling to be effective - but sore..Are you doing any eccentric wrist exercises ?

What is the difference between acupuncture and dry needling?

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nosaj27 said..

CarterSUPhysio said..
Don't stretch a tennis elbow. Roll with a ball the tight forearm muscles, get a rolling pin and roll along the muscle but don't stretch. Stretching a tendinopthy will usually cause more irritation of the tendon. Accupuncture and dry needling are different beasts. Most physio's do dry needling but may 'explain' it is accupuncture. In my experience i've found dry needling to be effective - but sore..Are you doing any eccentric wrist exercises ?

What is the difference between acupuncture and dry needling?

There is traditional accupuncture - your body is assessed by a TEM practitioner (Traditional Eastern Medical) for 'blockages' in certain meridians that effect the flow of qi (Chi) around the body. This is the 'traditional' belief by eastern medical practitioners that is the cause of ailments or disease.there is 'western' accupuncture - largely used for pain relief, in which traditional accupuncture points are needled, so to add up to a whole body pain relief (it is called western accuopuncture because western science now knows that many traditional accupuncture points lie quite close to large nerves in the body (i.e the point in the webspace of your thumb a traditional accuopuncturist would call LI4, or the 4th liver channel, actually is really close to your radial nerve. So when you stick a needle close to your radial nerve you get a strong segmental and extrasegmental neurophysiological response (= pain relief)Dry needling was technically invented by JFK's doctor, Janet Travell. Her and a colleague were investigating whether cortisone, a anaesthetic (lignocaine) or a 'dry needle' (no fluid to inject) worked best at relieving pain from knots in muscles (trigger points). They found that the 'dry needle' worked just as well as the cortisone and lignocaine - so why inject something with a fluid if you can get the same response from just sticking a needle into it?Luckily now days, we use accupuncture needles - instead of doctors needles for this technique. But I think this is where some of the confusion comes from...Overall, the difference is in the justification of what you're trying to achieve - when I dry needle patients i'm not trying to unlock the flow of Qi through a meridian to fix something. I'm sticking a needle into a knot in a muscle to improve blood flow, create a neurophysiological response that relaxes the muscle and a few other sciency things...I hope that all makes a bit of sense! Not saying one works better than the other, perhaps some practitioners will claim that accuouncture will cure you of things,which isn't true. Like anything it's one approach that works for some and not for others

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rockmagnet said..
Sorry to say CARTERSUPHysio but in my years of experience of exercising, stretching the forearm muscles is exactly the way to fix tendonitis and not only that, stretching works on shoulders too providing it is tendonitis and not torn.
I may not have a university degree but i know what works.

nah that's cool man. If its worked for you that's cool. Not trying to one up you,just trying to give some advice to a fellow paddler from my knowledge from my exercise physiology degree and physio degree

I'm more than happy to throw out why I'm not a fan of stretching a tendinopthy if you wanted??

I have posted on this topic previously. As a carpenter I suffered the pain of tennis elbow on serval occasions throughout my life, basically it's an overuse injury or RSI.
The most recent being a few years back that became chronic and lasted over 12 months before I sought treatment.
I went to a physio who permed acupuncture and then attached a TENS to the needles.
He gave me a 50/50 chance of a cure because it was now considered chronic, being apparent for more than 12 months.
He also gave me a physio rubber band and gave me a series of exercises to perform.
I Performed the exercises religiously and then some. It took about 6-8 sessions before I found relief and I continued the exercises.

My particular form of tennis elbow was caused by intense gripping, hence the relationship to carpentry by gripping the hammer handle.
in this case it was cause by my newly formed exercise routine of weights and SUP, where I was over gripping the weight bar and the paddle handle.

There are various forms of tennis elbow and the type of exercises required for rehabilitation will vary depending on the type of tennis elbow you have.
I have since purchased a TENS machine (quite a strong one) with adhesive pads and finds it works extremely well on any injury.

TENS works best on higher setting, the more you can withstand the discomfort, the better the result. I would increase the setting when the physio left the room to a point just bearable. I found the results to be quite dramatic especially when considering I had trouble holding a cup of coffee without supporting it with the other hand.

No repercussions since because I am now conscious of not over gripping in SUP and when exercising.

Good luck with your injury

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GizzieNZ said..
does any of this translate in layman's terms to "a shorter paddle involves less bending of the elbow?" Seems like with a longish paddle there is more elbow bending

Interesting question Gizzie... This is where i'm super interested - where physio and technique / coaching / biomechanics all come together. When you say shorter paddle, less bending of arm, are you referring to top hand in the stroke or bottom - love chatting about this stuffI look at this as well, it's not always just elbow bending and straightening repetitively that causes tennis elbow, it often as others have mentioned, is from sustained gripping in which the elbow can be perfectly straight.thoughts?