If you have tennis elbow or lateral epicondylitis, you will experience pain along the outer and inner areas of your elbow joints. You need to understand that this pain is not going to miraculously disappear by itself; you need to do something about it. Giving your injured arm ample rest seems to be the best and easiest solution which is why many medical practitioners highly suggest that you provide your arm with proper rest to encourage healing.
However, in order to speed up the entire recovery process, it seems that resting your injured arm alone is not going to suffice. You need to supplement rest with other forms of treatment, so you could control both the swelling and the pain.
These days, there are medicated gels that you can apply topically over the inflamed regions of your arm and there are also anti-inflammatory pills and drugs readily available in your local health stores. Both over the counter remedies will work to reduce the inflammation along your joints and also lessen the pain you experience.
Using a tennis elbow brace is one of the best tennis elbow treatment since it will help realign your ligaments and tendons and will reduce the pain and tenderness as well in the process. Wrapping the swollen areas with a hot or cold compress is another excellent form of treatment. Just remember that once you have applied either a warm or cold compress along the area, keep it steady and refrain from moving it about since there is a possibility that such action might aggravate your condition.
A visit to a physiotherapist may also suggest the use of hydrotherapy to soothe the pain. This is a new method that involves blasting the affected area with pressurized water.
Pressurized water will massage the area and in effect, promote muscle tissue repair and renewal. However, as was said earlier, this is a new approach and there is still much debate regarding the effectiveness of this method.