Tennis elbow, medically known as “lateral epicondylitis”, is seen in people who work in arm strength jobs. The extreme discomfort of the tissues can be defined as the lateral epicondyle unencrypted strain to which the tendons of the arm muscles adhere.
Beam and bone joints are tattooed, healing in tattoos is achieved with beam fibrotic cells and bones are again with periosteal cells with very good differentiation ability. Forcing continued healing tissue is more fibrotic, about creating a scar that does not bleed very well between cartilage and bone at rest. In either case, the tissue does not resemble muscle, bone, or tendon tissue. We call this condition “Entesopathy” beam-bone attachment site disorder. In this respect, tennis player disease is a kind of enthesopathy disorder.
Patients complain of not being able to bear weight, sometimes it is even possible to lift a tea glass. Pain can spread to the forearm, and there may be those who wake up with pain at night. This discomfort, which affects daily life, becomes chronic and difficult to treat if it is not treated in a timely and correct manner.
The diagnosis can be made supported by examination and simple radiological tests. MRI examination should be performed in resistant and repetitive situations. MRI reveals tears in muscle structures and allows us to examine intra-articular ligament structures. If there is no muscle tear, the treatment is mostly successful with simple bandages, oral and locally used anti-inflammatory drugs.
It is possible to continue medical treatment in resistant cases, up to shock therapy (ESWT), cellular therapies and steroid injection as a last resort. If all these treatments do not result in results, surgical treatments should be considered.
Timing is very important in surgical treatment. Instead of a resistant epicondylitis treatment, it may be possible to return to daily life in a short time with an intervention before the recovery capacity is lost. If there is a muscle rupture, if it does not respond to plaster determination; It should be repaired without waiting, and after the plaster fixation, rehabilitation should be started immediately and adhesions called contractures should be prevented. Different methods, ranging from soft tissue surgeries such as “loosening” to bone surgeries, may be preferred in the surgical treatment of resistant epicondylitis. During open surgery, intense adhesion may unintentionally cause external connective structures to be damaged. In addition, postoperative wound care and long-lasting plaster fixations are in question.
Nowadays, arthroscopic treatment not only minimizes the complications of traditional methods, but also easily eliminates scar tissue that causes pain in the epicondyle area with magnification and non-bleeding imaging. Operations can be recorded and examined during future controls.
If intra-articular structures are observed, correction of cartilage problems and control of ligaments are other advantages. If there is no repair after elbow arthroscopy, plaster cast is usually not applied and the next day can be returned to work. Using a bandage, it may even be possible to use a computer. We recommend ten days of rest to our patients, unless more is required.