Tennis elbow is a painful inflammation of the muscles and tendons on the outside of the arm just at and below the elbow joint. Its proper medical term is lateral epicondylitis. The name tennis elbow is a little misleading because it is not only tennis players who suffer from it.
Tennis elbow can also affect golfers, bricklayers, housewives just about anyone who is active.
Any activity that involves repeatedly rotating your wrist and using force, such as throwing a ball or using a screwdriver, can cause tennis elbow. This repeated bending and twisting of your forearm creates small tears in the muscles and tendons in the forearm, eventually causing painful inflammation and interference with normal function. People aged between 35 and 55 are more likely to develop tennis elbow. Common symptoms are pain and tenderness in the outside of the elbow and sometimes in the muscles on the top part of the forearm. Tennis elbow can be effectively treated, although it may take some time to cure it completely.