[kraigster414]

All of a sudden I have developed what is best as "shooters elbow" similar to tennis elbow I suspect. 'Pain that radiates from my wrist to my elbow when I tightly grip my gun - the result of extensive range firing. Any cures that work for this other than lay off shooting for a while and Motrin? Thanks.

[Kingman]

don't lock your elbow.

Use light weights to start to rebuild

[Catfish]

You'll find lots of info on this if you do a search for "tendonitis".

Long story short, for me - constant stretching, ice if it gets really bad, and advil. Also, the more time I spend in the gym, the less my tendonitis bothers me. And switching from a wide bodied .40 to a SS .45 made it almost go completely away without doing anything else different.

[maineshootah]

Catfish, on Nov 3 2007, 12:35 PM, said:

You'll find lots of info on this if you do a search for "tendonitis".

Do the search, as there are several different terms for the pain you are experiencing due to the location of the pain at the elbow.

Ice, rest, anti-inflamatory meds, stretching is a good start.

Mine was so bad I could not hold a cup of coffee up with my arm straight out. Four months of Physical Therapy (ultrasound and stim), chiropractic care, band therapy for stretching, ice and rest has my arm completely pain free.

Don't wait on this, it WILL get worse if you do not start taking care of the problem.

Been there.. done that.

[JThompson]

A lot of the guys wear one of these and swear by them...

http://images.google...l%3Den%26sa%3DN

[smokshwn]

Some great info here......

The enclosed exercises worked extremely well for me.

http://www.nismat.or...r/tennis_elbow/

[Sean Gaines]

I get this quite often especially when I do alot of reloading and shooting before a big match. I would call it reloading elbow, more so than shooting elbow. The best thing to fix it, for me at least is to let it heal, and not use it as much, and it seems to go away, but when that next big match comes up, it flares up again. don't really know how to get rid of it completely. When I load large amounts now, I have an elbow brace that I put on to give more support and that seems to work a little. I will somtimes shoot with it on, especially when I am filling the berms with lots of lead.

[BillL223]

I developed the problem when I was doing a lot of pin shooting with heavy loads. I found that the various "Tennis Elbow" braces seemed to work.

[Paul Burtchell]

www.activerelease.com
I use to be into bodybuilding and powerlifting and this procedure kept me going as I aged. It is performed by Chiropractors with specialized training. Painful as hell, but it flat works.
The other suggestions will also help as well, but this procedure get to the root of the problem.

[dajarrel]

kraigster414,
The first thing I would do is find out what repetitive motion is causing the injury. I have had two bouts of "shooters elbow" One came from my 650 with a roller handle and about 600 rounds. The constant reverse bending of the wrist aggravated the tendon in the elbow. It took about 3-4 months and going back to the ball type handle along with some physical therapy to get over it. The other time was when I was shooting revolver. The action of dumping the rounds with my left hand and then rotating the gun to receive new rounds got the other elbow. I've gone back to my limited gun and the pain is almost gone.

The pain relieving bands helped me considerably along with Ibuprofen.

If you can find out what is causing it and remove that motion, you will have started the road to recovery.

Worked for me,

dj

This post has been edited by dajarrel: 03 November 2007 - 04:55 PM

[dcarter]

The truth is we don't seem to care about it until we get it. The best cure for this common problem is to do the work that needs to be done to prevent it from happening. A little weight lifting, curls and the like, will keep most people from having to deal with this. I had it last year and have vowed to never let it happen because I didn't do anything to prevent it. Also the weight lifting helps with other aspects of your shooting. just my .02.

[Nate]

For chronic problems there is always the shot. I taught music and played a lot of piano along with a lot of shooting and ended up where I could not eat with my left arm. I used the above mentioned things and it got no better. After getting an injection of cortisone I was back to normal in days. I continued with ice, anitiflamitory meds and excercise and no longer suffer. There is a limit to the number of injections you can get but it really saved me.

[boo radley]

Developed tennis elbow, aka 'lateral epicondylitis' early in 2007 and have been suffering ever since to some degree. I think the cause was an injury from being careless with a curl bar, but for sure the elbow does not like shooting.

Saw an orthopod, and got "the shot" which gave me 2 months of 100% relief, but over the last few months some pain has come back, but it's tolerable, and those forearm bands help, as well as stretching and weightlifting. <shrug>

[maineshootah]

dcarter, on Nov 3 2007, 11:37 PM, said:

The truth is we don't seem to care about it until we get it. The best cure for this common problem is to do the work that needs to be done to prevent it from happening. A little weight lifting, curls and the like, will keep most people from having to deal with this. I had it last year and have vowed to never let it happen because I didn't do anything to prevent it. Also the weight lifting helps with other aspects of your shooting. just my .02.

+1, amen brother.

[midvalleyshooter]

I have had various elbow and hand issues also. Here are some suggestions that have helped me and a couple I have seen others do.

On the reloading side I use a product called One Shot made by Hornady. I put all the cases in a towel and smooth it all out flat, then spray the One Shot, then grasp all four corners of the towel and shake the cases to distribute the One Shot. Let the cases dry for about 5 minutes and load away. The effort to run the press is greatly reduced. Don't discount One Shot, I learned about it From Brian right here on the forum.

As for shooting here are some of the things I have done that have helped:
1) Wear the strap mentioned above. Or find one made of neopreme, the neopreme provides support and keeps the elbow warmed up.
2) Ice then heat, 10 minutes or so of each, for me this works with all tendon, muscle sprains etc.
3) Advil, pill up, but don't over do the dosage.
4) Cut down on high speed movements, back in the day I first hurt my elbow when shooting a P9 on a quest for a sub one second draw, (which is pretty dumb really).
5) Go to a lighter load (shoot minor?)
6) Put all the buffers you can in your gun.
7) I have seen other shooters switch to 9mm and buy their ammo for awhile. I have also seen shooters go to the left (or right for lefties) side for awhile, scores suffer, but hey you are still shooting.

Above all else rest it, think all the activities that you can switch to the other arm. Start with the mouse on your PC.

Best of luck,
Keith

[Les Snyder]

this worked for me...

support back of your upper arm just above elbow on arm of chair

use a very light weight, like a can of peas or corn

do slow curls to stretch the tendon ..... easy thru a 30min TV program

skip a day

repeat

mine was cured by the 3rd application

if it works, thank Brian Karabaich, Col,USA (SF) (ret) if you ever meet him

regards
Les

[P.Pres]

Some great info here......

The enclosed exercises worked extremely well for me.

http://www.nismat.or...r/tennis_elbow/
[/quote]

Worked for me! Got to the point where I was wearing my arm band all day now
I only keep it in the range bag just in case.

I do a lot of physical work with my hands and I found it comes from just plain overuse,
the first time I got it really bad was when I sat down to deswage 1000 military primers
with a hand tool!!! That constant rotation pretty much did me in for months!!!

[R.Elliott]

I'm prone to this condition and have "cured" it many times over the years only to have it return. I follow all the therapy protocols, stretch, ice, strengthening blah blah blah, but pretty much every time I start getting pain and inflamation around my elbos I can look directly to my load recipe for the cure. I'm back to using very fast powder again in my .40's (I prefer that feel) and as soon as I switched from slower to faster I started getting pain. Just the duration of the recoil pulse seems to overload the tendons, much like ballistic training with wieghts will. Why do some get tendonitis and some don't using the same loads? I dunno, maybe it has to do with the predominant types of muscle fibers each individul has....? I know how to fix it though. Just don't want to for now.

[badchad]

R.Elliott, on Nov 9 2007, 08:49 AM, said:

I'm prone to this condition and have "cured" it many times over the years only to have it return. I follow all the therapy protocols, stretch, ice, strengthening blah blah blah, but pretty much every time I start getting pain and inflamation around my elbos I can look directly to my load recipe for the cure. I'm back to using very fast powder again in my .40's (I prefer that feel) and as soon as I switched from slower to faster I started getting pain. Just the duration of the recoil pulse seems to overload the tendons, much like ballistic training with wieghts will. Why do some get tendonitis and some don't using the same loads? I dunno, maybe it has to do with the predominant types of muscle fibers each individul has....? I know how to fix it though. Just don't want to for now.

Hello. If it is tendinitis you have (which it does sound like), or tendinosis as the condition is being more correctly called today, you can ignore most conventional advice. My day job is physical therapy and tendinosis is one of my areas of specialty.

The short answer is it’s not an inflammatory condition so ice, and anti-inflammatory medications should not be expected to work, and in some studies have been directly shown not to work. Rest and stretching won’t do much either and I’m fairly agnostic with regards to the various elbow bands. What has been shown to work (about 80% of the time) in what is becoming a plethora of research is eccentric exercise directly to the muscle involved.

For the long answer, I have an article at my website that his highly referenced but still in fair layman’s terms that I put a lot of work into. I wrote it before I became involved in IPSC shooting but the info should still be pretty relevant and can probably be done at home with minimal exercise equipment. After reading it, you will be more up to date than probably 95% of medical practitioners out there. If you or anyone else has any further questions after reading it let me know.

Here’s the link http://absolutept.co...dinitispage.htm

[boo radley]

Chad -- that is an *amazing* article.

[WRHALL]

As a member of the both the medical community & SE Victims Club let me add my story to the mix.The combo of years of shooting guns ,hitting tennis balls & advancing age gave me a very sore elbow this summer. A friend who
is a PT gave me series of exercises,a friend who is a doc gave me the SHOT & being the druggist I added the meds.Two weeks of R&R & I returned to shootingNo pain & a local club victory was followed 1 week later with a very hurt elbow. A visit back to the doc led to a MRI & a visit to the surgery doctor which has led to a new piece of metal in my body(a pin in the elbow) which led to 10 days in a sling then 3 weeks in a very expensive robo-cop elbow brace.After 4 weeks of PT rehab here's my advice : (1) The exercises shown on the other posts are basically what I've been doing & will contine doing. Add a handroller exercise (this can be done at home on a stat bike or rowing machine if you have one),a Bowflex type strethcing series & the rollup series (there is an old Western with Robert Culp & R Welch that has her doing this same drill when learning to become a gunfighter).(2)The surgery doc strongly suggested my comeback be done with a heavy,light recoiling firearm(for all you who figured everyone in the med community hates &or knows nothing about guns he said no to major cal GLocks without even asking what I shot). I am now the proud new owner of a CZ 75 Sp01. (3) I'm limited to 20 dryfire draws per workout & while not painful that is the most discomforting exercise I do.(4)While drugs(ie Motrin,Naproxen,etc) are IMO both helpful & needed caution needs to be used with the SHOT. Steroids ,as good as they are,tend to mask serious injuries.In my case what was probably a partial tear of the tendon became a complete tear & some minor bone damage.(5)When you become a reluctant member of the Old Farts Club exercise is a must & Production starts looking better every day. GOOD LUCK

[Mick]

I've been fighting "tennis elbow" for almost 10 years. I injured my left elbow (I'm right handed) back in the 80s and they thought it was also tennis elbow and did the surgery. I tore something in the middle but they didn't catch it. I got several injections on cortezone and that left elbow has never been the same when trying to lift weights. With that said, I will never let them cut on my right elbow!
I have pictures of me shooting in '97 when I got my M card. I still have two of the same gel pad braces I wore then and am wearing one right now at work.
This year I shot over 30,000 rounds of my .40 major load with a 180 over N320. My elbow is as sore as it's ever been but I WILL NOT GO TO THE DR!!! I do liquid gel Advil, minor excercises and I'll shoot an SV that is identical to my .40 but is a 9mm until February. My problem is that I love to shoot.
Last Friday I practiced on steel for the weekend. I was shooting the major .40 and before I realized it, I'd shot 550 rounds. Needless to say my elbow was sore for the weekend. I'll start with the 9mm this week and shoot LTD minor for the winter months (this is Texas!). This should help even though my scores will drop for awhile....

[miyamoto]

smokshwn, on Nov 3 2007, 01:54 PM, said:

Some great info here......

The enclosed exercises worked extremely well for me.

http://www.nismat.or...r/tennis_elbow/

I have done what you have listed for some time with excellent results. Luckily we have a local Bone Doc who is also an excellent shooter, that kindly helps shooters out with these problems.

[bountyhunter]

Kingman, on Nov 3 2007, 09:34 AM, said:

don't lock your elbow.

Use light weights to start to rebuild

But, you must let it heal fully first. The pain is from micro tears and they have to heal.

I have constant tendonitis, and I remember asking my doctor what to do for it. I said: "It hurts when I do this."

He said: "Then stop doing that."

Seriously, if you have tendonitis you have to stop doing what caused it until it heals.

[Vagus]

Chiropractor here...


Mainshootah and BadChad are probably right, but I would recommend getting a professionals 1st hand opinion on it.

It is rather silly not to go to a Doctor and let a group of strangers diagnosis and offer recommendations. The old saying an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure fits well here. Why monkey around with best guesses and "I've had something similar before" anecdotal type stuff. Best to properly take care of the issue then have it be worse.