Tennis elbow (tendinitis)?

I have been having my tennis elbow treated with Active Release Techniques. I don't see any improvement after six weeks of this treatment. Does anyone have any experience with this painful condition or alternative treatments that could be considered?

Sometimes tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis) can be directly related to shoulder weakness, dysfunction, or restricted motion. You may not have shoulder pain, but lack of scapular mobility, scapular stabilization, rotator cuff strength, thoracic extension, and shoulder internal rotation can all be contributing factors to elbow dysfunction.

Tennis elbow involves inflammation of the extensor tendons of the forearm, usually where they attach at the lateral epicondyle. With activities, the elbow extensors are taking on too much of the work, trying to make up for deficiencies in the shoulder. They get overloaded, and inflammed. But the underlying problem is not in the elbow, it is in the shoulder. The elbow is just where the symptoms show.

You need to make sure that your clinician has evaluated your shoulder function, and that everything there is working correctly. I have treated numerous patients with "tennis elbow" successfully, without doing anything at the elbow.

Treating your symptoms with rest, ice, a compression strap, iontophoresis, and as a last resort a cortizone injection may help reduce your pain, but you may have underlying dysfunction in your shoulder that needs to be addressed.

~It can take longer than 6 weeks to feel improvement. Use your arm as little as possible. Figure out what movement made it sore, then don't do that.
I've had the same problem. It's been months and I still have it. My daughter tells me there's no such thing as tennis elbow! So I swung at her and it hurt my tennis elbow.. lol
Good luck~

As odd as it seems, the straps that go around the forearm do help a lot. They are inexpensive and available in almost any pharmacy.

Initial relief came within a day for me and I could get rid of the strap after less than a month.