Elbow & Wrist Pain

The right treatment can help you get back to activity faster.

Common Issues

There are some common causes for elbow and wrist pain, and we can help diagnose your problem and treat your pain.

Tennis elbow is an overuse condition that causes pain over the outer part of the elbow. It is often due to overuse activities that repetitively load the forearm muscles involved in wrist extension. This repetitive overuse creates tiny tears and scarring that lead the tendons to degenerate over time, causing pain and tenderness over the outer elbow, and in some cases can cause sharp pain, pins and needles or numbness to occur in the forearm.

Wrist injuries are usually the result of falling onto an outstretched hand but can also be the result of trauma from ball, contact or upper limb weight bearing sports such as gymnastics.

Our experts will develop a elbow or wrist pain treatment program, with exercises to reduce the symptoms and address the root cause of the problem.

Elbow pain and injury

If elbow pain persists greater than a couple of weeks and use of the RICE principle is to no avail, then treatment by a physiotherapist will aim to decrease pain and encourage tendon healing. This is achieved using manual therapy techniques such as soft tissue release, joint mobilizations, and stretches, electrotherapy treatment modalities like therapeutic ultrasound, as well as acupuncture or dry needling. Once this is underway, specific exercises to strengthen the forearm will begin and your physiotherapist can then discuss your gradual return to normal work and sporting activities.

It is important to note that returning to normal activity too early can lead to aggravation of the injury, resulting in increased or persistent pain and a longer recovery time for you.

Wrist pain and injury

Although wrist pain can be caused by torn ligaments / connective tissue or a fracture the pain can also be referred from other sources such as the neck, upper back, shoulder or elbow.

Overuse can be the cause of wrist pain, particularly in gripping activities such as racquet sports or manual work such as carpentry.

A more common overuse wrist injury is Wrist Tendonitis due to gradual degeneration and inflammation of one or more wrist tendons.