Book Appointment
Over time, even the best-conditioned athletes tend to suffer from pain associated with overuse injuries. Repeated motions from golfing tennis and many other sports can eventually exceed the tolerance of the muscles, bones, tendons, and cartilage in certain areas of your body. Elbows and knees are common joints affected by these types of injuries.
Unlike acute trauma, overuse injuries tend to sneak up on you, beginning with minor discomfort that you might ignore and, eventually becoming severe enough to interrupt training and other activities.
Tennis elbow (pain on the outside of the elbow, and in the forearm and wrist) and golfer’s elbow (pain on the inner side of the elbow) conditions are not limited to tennis players and golfers, rather, they can affect anyone using repetitive flexion and extension motions that create micro-tears and tissue degeneration in and around the elbow joint.
Overuse injuries of the knees can result in interior, anterior, and lateral pain in and around the knee. A common overuse condition of the knee is patellar tendonitis, also called jumper’s knee, which occurs when there is degeneration along the tendon that runs from the quadricep to the shin bone from repetitive pulling on the knee when jumping, landing, running, and cutting. The pain is generally located just below the knee.
Common or not, overuse injuries should not lead you to consider giving up your sport. Dry needling is one of many sports chiropractic therapies proven effective for addressing elbow and knee pain.
What is Dry Needling?
Dry needling involves the insertion of tiny dry needles (nothing is injected) into trigger points of the elbow and knee. These hyper-irritable spots in the muscles are often the site of pain and swelling, and they may even be palatable as small knots or adhesions in the upper bands of the muscles.
Dry needling seeks to deactivate painful trigger points by both reducing inflammation and improving circulation to the irritated area. When pain and inflammation are reduced and nutrients are free to flow back to the aggravated knees and elbows, healing efforts are more likely to succeed.
Many patients report a dramatic improvement in pain reduction after just one session of dry needling, with even greater relief over time, especially when used in conjunction with other sports chiropractic therapies, such as soft tissue manipulation, red light therapy, and more.
That’s because tennis elbow, golfer’s elbow, and jumper’s knee are not always due solely to repetitive motion. Unbalanced muscle strength, skeletal misalignments, and poor biomechanics often exacerbate overuse mobility issues.
Once pain is relieved, sports chiropractic care is better able to address the underlying causes of pain in the elbows, knees, and other places in the body.
If you are struggling with elbow or knee pain and want to see if dry needling therapy can help you get back to pain-free athletic training, contact Dynamic Sports Medicine today.
