Tennis elbow anyone?

[Baz]

Hi

New to this forum.

I've been fencing for a couple of months and unfortunately my fencing exertions have led to a rather painful attack of tennis elbow or lateral epicondylitis.

I'm going to rest it up for 2-3 weeks. Has anyone else had this experience and what treatments - if any - did you use?

Any info or advice gratefully received.

[engardemisami]

I too had it around my first year of fencing. It was around the December time frame when we did not have a lot of practice and with the Holidays, was able to rest it a good 3 to 4 weeks and it went away. I did however do some strengthening exercises for the arm and also used that orthopedic strap-with-the-buble-thing to put pressure on that part of the joint. It has been over a year and it never came back.

[Artisan]

I have felt small tinges of the same thing (tennis elbow), especially when working on a parry 2. Its a reminder to me to not squeeze the grip so tightly.

[CarlKnoch]

I've had a bout with it that has lasted months. Taking Voltaren and trying to rest it when not fencing. Could have had a shot in the elbow, but chose to trythe oral meds first.

It is painful, and I feel for ya.
Cheers

[hscoach]

I have had it and it hurt to even bring my coffee cup up to my mouth. I was told when you first go back to fencing to ice it after practice. Also, pushups seem to help, not until the pain goes away. Good Luck.

[Peach]

What worked for me:

(a) using the strap
(b) not parrying with arm motions that resemble a writhing alligator
(c) icing after every practice
(d) switching to sabre

[Inquartata]

Here's a treatment method I found on aboard with more of an SCA-fighting focus. I've yet to try it, but it strongly resembles the hot-cold-hot-cold shower Rob Stull ( Modern Pentathlon team ) once recommended for treating sore muscles:

"This was a specialty in my former career.
I would need a lot more info for a good eval but it sounds like fighting is not the whole issue since the problem is bilateral and I'm guessing you don't fight equally with both hands. Fighting probably contributes though.

In any event it is likely some sort of repetative stress injury, details can be hard to pin down unless you get a really good practitioner or you are very observant yourself but luckily there is a lot you can do without details.

#1 Contrast therapy. Get two large containers of water and a teapot. Fill the first with very warm water (~114degrees F if you want to be particular but basically just shy of burning). Fill the second with water and a layer of ice cubes. This should chill the water and keep it to about 40deg if you have at least an inch of floating icecubes. If they all melt, add more. Fill the teapot with boiling water.

Now, soak your elbow and as much of your forearm as will fit in the warm water for 3 minutes. As the water gets cool, you can add a bit of boiling but make sure to remove your elbow while pouring to avoid a burn.

After three minutes take the elbow out and put it in the icewater as before for at least 60 seconds. Man up! this water will feel extra cold due to coming from the warm and if you are like me it will make your lip sweat. After the full 60 seconds return immediately to the warm water (keeping it warm with the water you boiled. You may have to have a little cup to remove some water as you add hot to warm to keep the volume the same. Repeat this until you get bored, 15 minutes is good.

This is better than ice, beteer than heat, better than linament, way better than TENS. It takes a bit of work but it's worth it. You get multiple rounds of vascular excercise, that is dialation and constriction of the blood vessels that has a milking action and reduces chronic inflammation and ischemia."

His other recommendations:

"Next, stretch. Rather than me try to explain some stretches onlinr get a workout video or something or just ask a PT or personal trainer for some arm stretches. There is really no bad stretching so just do it.

Get yourself a good massage therapist. How do you know if they are good? One criteria that might help is to look for someone that is a certified neuromuscluar therapist (NMT). Another is find out who local sports teams use. Don't go to a salon or day spa, go to a clinic. You should get 30 minutes on just your arm and shoulder. If they run out of things to do on your arm after 10 minutes go somewhere else.

Do self massage. Find the tender spots on your medial and lateral epicondyle where the hand and wrist extensors (lateral) and flexors (medial) attach and use your fingertips to firmly apply pressure and move back and forth across the attachments ("cross-fiber friction")."

[Kodiak Kid]

You could search for a thread titled "My elbow is killing me!" to get the same stories, but What I did to successfully "fix" my elbow was,
1) the strap, every time I'd fence, even practice
2) wrist curls with a small (3-5 pound) dumbell, any time i could find the opportunity: at my desk, in the car, watching TV etc
3) repeat above for several months.

As noted above, I feel your pain. Good luck.

OBTW, I havn't had to use the strap for over a year but i still do curls occassionally. (Hmmm, where IS that dumbell?)