Cold Therapy/BFST for tennis elbow

[Stacy]

What is the recommended treatment regime for severe tennis elbow? I keyboard all day at work. Should I use the cold therapy during the day then use the BFST in the evening after I come home?

[Adrienne]

Hi there Stacy, the recommended treatment regimen for severe tennis elbow is lots of rest and ideally none to little use of the arm! 
Unfortunately that's not always an option, but we would still recommend you try to restrict use as much as possible.

Whilst you are experiencing swelling, inflammation and pain you should definitely keep applying cold throughout the day. Use of the ColdCure Elbow wrap gels from the fridge will enable you to keep alternating the gels, to get the maximum amount of cold therapy, as you can use these gels back-to-back (without taking breaks, which you would need if you were to use the gels from the freezer). Wearing the wrap throughout the day at work should also provide you with much needed compression.

You definitely want to get a handle on any inflammation or swelling before you start your BFST treatments.

If / when you're past the inflammation and swelling stage, but are mainly experiencing pain, I would suggest you start your day with a BFST treatment and aim to do another treatment at lunchtime, when you get home from work and another before bed if possible. Each BFST treatment will stimulate your blood flow for several hours and spreading treatments across each day will speed up your recovery and healing process.

Once you're using the BFST you ideally don't want to be treating with cold too, as it counteracts the benefits of BFST, however, if you experience pain flare-ups between BFST treatments, you can still use the ColdCure.  Simply aim to do another BFST treatment about 20 minutes after using the ColdCure, to keep your blood flow at optimum levels.

If you experience inflammation and swelling again, stop your BFST treatments and resume the back-to-back ColdCure treatments until these symptoms have subsided and then you can start your BFST regimen again.

Everyone's healing is different; lifestyle / activity and the amount of time you can dedicate to treating your tennis elbow will have a huge impact on how quickly you can recover, but if you listen to your body and try to follow these guidelines, you should see a big difference. All the best of luck & happy holidays!!!

[Stacy]

Thanks for the reply. I can't really say I'm experiencing any swelling... none that I can see anyway, just pain (and lot of it!!). And I'm not sure how to tell if there is inflammation. I thought the inflammation was what caused the pain.

(as a side-bar... I had a steroid injection about a month ago, given by my PCP, and it helped for a couple of weeks, but now the pain is back with a vengeance)

So with that said, is what you're recommending is that I wait to start any BFST until after my pain subsides?

I'm a little confused.

The only activity I'm doing with my arm is just day to day, life living activity.... no weight lifting, no yard work, no heavy lifting.... just going to work (as I said, I work a desk job that requires I'm on the computer all day) and day to day things like laundry, cooking, etc.... can't really stop doing THOSE things.

[Kyle]

Hi Stacy,

As long as your injury has not healed it is natural to be experiencing pain, this does not necessarily mean that you have inflammation. However the elbow is a body part that is really hard to avoid using and every time you re-aggravate an injury it causes inflammation. Signs of inflammation are stiffness, aching and often throbbing pain even while the body part is at rest.

As Adrienne was recommending, the ColdCure product is more of a reactionary tool for getting down the initial inflammation and any returning inflammation from future aggravations. This is a very important step in the recovery process because inflammation constricts blood flow and therefore hinders the effectiveness of the BFST. Inflammation is also a source of the pain associated with an injury, however it is not the only source of pain in an injury. Therefore you do not need to wait until all of your pain subsides before going on to use the BFST, just get that aching, throbbing pain caused by the inflammation down.
 
The best way for you to go about using these products is to get the swelling and inflammation down with the ColdCure, once this is achieved then use the BFST throughout the day to speed up the recovery process. You should also use the BFST right before any activity that involves your elbow, to create elasticity and prevent re-aggravation. If you do cause the swelling / inflammation to return than go back to the ColdCure until it subsides.

I hope this helps!

[Stacy]

Thanks. It does help. Much appreciated. Happy New Year!