New Approach to Treating Repetitive Strain Injuries
You hadn’t touched a tennis racket in decades, yet your doctor diagnosed a “tennis elbow”. You have iced it, rested it, stretched it and even had it injected, but your elbow is still sore. Tennis elbow is a type of repetitive strain injury (RSI) like carpal tunnel syndrome, golfer’s elbow and De Quervain’s tenosynovitis which can be brought on by everyday tasks such as gardening, typing or DIY. An RSI can be a very frustrating injury, with many RSI sufferers trying multiple treatments with poor results.
Active Release Techniques (ART) might be just what you need.
ART is a movement based hands-on soft tissue treatment of ligaments, muscles, tendons, and nerves. It is the market leading soft tissue therapy in the world, used extensively to treat RSI on-site by corporations. The technique- the patient shortens a muscle and the ART provider applies manual tension to the muscle. With the tension held in place, the patient stretches the muscle forcing it to slide out from under the contact of the provider’s fingers. The treatment hurts a bit, although most patients describe it as a “good hurt”. It feels like a stretch that you need, but you can’t do by yourself.
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
The median nerve travels through the forearm and it supplies the hand muscles of the thumb. The nerve can be pinched in the carpal tunnel at the wrist, but it can also need treatment near a forearm muscle called the pronator teres. ART is the conservative approach that should be tried before a more invasive surgery. An ART provider will treat along the course of the median nerve all the way from the wrist back up to its source nerves at the neck. Like all treatments ART doesn’t always work, but when it does it usually works in 3 to 6 treatment sessions.
Golfer’s Elbow
Like tennis elbow, golfer’s elbow is nowhere near limited to golfers. It is a pain on the inside of the elbow, which was once thought to be a tendinitis. Now it is considered a tendinopathy, which may include inflammation but not always. ART treatment of the flexor carpi ulnaris, is often effective in reducing the pain caused by golfer’s elbow.
DeQuervain’s Tenosynovitis
When pain is present in the back of the forearm travelling up from the thumb to the middle of the forearm, De Quervain’s Tenosynovitis should be considered. Two muscles which move the thumb, are the source of the problem and ART treatment of them is very effective.
Make an appointment at Whitley Bay Chiropractic if you live near Newcastle.
Find an ART provider near you.
The ART of Active Release Technique for Injuries I treated Lucy Fry, a Telegraph.co.uk journalist, she wrote about the experience!
Treating professional athletes and the general public since 1997.