have you had golfer's elbow before?

i did some searching and saw a lot of threads on golfer's elbow, but none really that addressed my question.  for a while i was playing once a week and the elbow over time would be occasionally sore after a round.  and it would just be tender, nothing really that unordinary or worth being frustrated or concerned with.

a few weeks ago though i started going to the range a time or two during the week.  for about 2 weeks straight i probably went to the range 6 times and played 4 rounds, so pretty much every other day i was hitting a lot of balls.  after than my elbow got really sore after i would hit.  it would hurt several days after.  i stopped doing that and went back to playing once a week, and it returned to that semi-sore state.

the thing is i'd like to go to the range a time or two during the week, but it sounds like my elbow just can't keep up with that schedule.  is there anything i can do besides limit my trips to the range?  the elbow never hurts while i'm playing, only after.

Ice and heat, on and off for 15-20 minutes, every couple of hours if it starts to hurt.

Stop playing golf for a while to keep immflamation in the tendon down

Strengthen your arm muscles so they bear more of the stress from the swing instead of the tendon.

Go to your sporting good store, to the tennis section and look for an elbow strap, this will compress the tendon keeping it from becomming inflammed. My dad had to get one, he had issues with his elbow as well

You probably should stop playing for a couple weeks to heal up. If you don't after one of the sessions (doesn't matter if it is a round or practice) you will eventually tweak it so it doesn't get better after 5 days of rest. In general the treatment is stretching, strengthing, and maybe a bit of pressure massage.

Other things you can do to help prevent it are

1) The strap which in theory takes a load of the tendon

2) graphite shafts absorb a lot of the stress

3) Talk to a pro to see if you are doing something in your swing that stress the joint.

4) Avoid matts like the plague unless your a major picker

I have been fighting this all summer and I really regret not taking a week off when it first came on. Now after 6 weeks of no golf and 4 weeks of physical therapy, I feel I am just about back. The good news is that I am a lot better putter....

Advil.  Rub some dirt on it.  My body is falling apart... But I keep playing!

Absolutely! There is no crying in [S]baseball[/S] golf!

Been fighting it since mid Sep. Pretty sure mine is simply RSI because I played so much this summer. With the bad weather and lack of daylight it's getting better. I do wear the strap from time to time both on and off the course. If it's real sore I take the OTC stuff and ice it down.

thanks for the replies.  i've definitely noticed matts make it much worse.  which elbow bothers you guys?  it's my left elbow and i'm a righty.  seems like it would be the opposite...

so do any serious problems come of having golfer's elbow, or is it just a recurring nuisance?  i can play with mine, but when it hurts after i play i always feel like that is bad for my body.

I had this for about half a week, it was my right arm and i am right handed. took time off, and rehabbed it, never had a problem since. A major issue i think is playing through the pain, that just lengthens the time needed to fix it.

If you let it linger long enough you eventually get to the point where you are unable to grasp thing without pain. Note that it is called golfers elbow (and tennis elbow on the other side) but there are a lot of repeative things (mousing on the computer, driving , lifting just about anything) that also cause the injury. If treated when it first appears, you can generally clear it up in a week or two. What most people do is just ignore it. After with a little icing and some ibuprofin, you can keep on doing what your doing for a months and most of the times it clears up by itself.  However in the cases when it doesn't clear up, it then takes several months to clear up.

I've got it going on right now.  Mine is tennis elbow, since it's on the outside.

Right now it's manageable and more annoying than painful.  But, I think I'm going to have to take a few weeks off when it gets cold and see if I can't get it healed up.

Exact same thing here, I've had mine since July... Most I've gone without playing is two weeks and its not going away. But knowing what things aggravate it helps, I know how to avoid it... I don't hold the club in my right hand alone either when idle..(right handed). Ibuprofen before playing helps a little...

Yeah, the frustrating thing is if you haven't played for a while, it starts feeling better and you feel like it's fixed.  Then you go play again and you're right back where you started.

i have it on the outside too, so i guess it's tennis elbow.  honestly the day after i play it feels fine, it's usually the few hours after i play where it hurts, and it hurts only when i extend it back and forth trying to find the pain.

Still not clear on "golfer's elbow" location. Does a right-handed golfer get it on his leading (LEFT) elbow, or his bending (RIGHT) elbow?

I'm right handed, and during the 2011 season I got to play more than usual, and had a tender LEFT elbow a couple of times. Since then, I started doing dynamic stretching exercises before playing or hitting full shots. Dynamic stretching = purposeful motion exercises to warm up the muscles. Haven't had any pain since then.

Also, do tennis elbow and golfer's elbow have similar causes, or are they different?

I believe it can occur on either elbow, but it's far more common on the left elbow for a right-handed golfer.

Golfer's elbow is on the inside of your elbow.  Tennis elbow is on the outside.  Obviously the nomenclature has nothing to do with the injury.  Golfers can get tennis elbow and tennis players can get golfer's elbow.  And about a hundred other sports can get either one.

While I'm sure the motions involved in the two injuries are different, the basic cause is the same.  Injury or stress to the tendons.  And once you've caused the injury, it's often difficult to get it to heal.  Some people have reported having to lay off a year or so to get complete healing, but I'm sure the amount of time varies according to the severity of the injury.

I know when mine happened - it was after a particularly lengthy range sessions off mats.  Lesson learned.

I do Bikram Yoga regularly. Some of the postures are great for things like tennis/golf elbow. I know of a few golfers at my studio who have been helped.

There's the yoga fix again!

A few years back I had that issue as well - pain in my right elbow (I'm left-handed), where impact really hurt. Also other aches & pains (back, wrists,etc) associated with just getting older. Been doing Hatha yoga for a year now & amazingly, no such pains.

This thread reminds me of an old joke -

A guy walks up to a golfer & says "What's that in your pocket?"

Golfer says "Golf balls."

Guy says "Is that like tennis elbow?"

weirdly, it just went away, and i didnt even stop playing golf.  i started icing once a day for 20 minutes, 3 ibuprofen once a day, and a few stretches twice daily.