03 / Understand the area
Outside of the elbow
Lifting a gallon of milk, turning a tool or gripping a racket may be when the outside of your elbow first gets your attention.
An educational guide that covers the left and right sides alike. Where it hurts is a useful clue, but only a clue.
A useful starting point
What this area can tell you.
This pattern can fit lateral elbow tendinopathy, better known as tennis elbow, and you don't have to play tennis to get it. Even so, it's a possibility to check, and nobody can diagnose it from where it hurts. Tenderness right at the spot, a change in your workload and what gripping does to the pain all add context. Numbness, symptoms that travel down from the neck, or pain that started with an injury may point us toward a different exam. The goals that make sense here are everyday ones, like carrying comfortably, and working back into the tasks that matter to you a bit at a time.
Notice the pattern
Three questions to bring with you.
You don't need to know what it is before you come in. These are details that help when you tell us what you're feeling.
- Which grip or lift brings on the familiar pain most reliably?
- Did your work, training or tool use change before it started?
- Is the pain only at the elbow, or do you also have numbness or symptoms elsewhere in the arm?
When to get help sooner
An elbow that is deformed or difficult to move after injury, or hot and swollen with fever, needs urgent assessment. New or worsening hand weakness should be medically assessed promptly.
Follow the connection
Possible explanations. Better questions.
These guides cover conditions and patterns that may overlap with this area. Think of them as a place to start our conversation: no body map can tell you which one, if any, you have.
Elbow tendinopathy
Pain when you grip or lift, often called tennis elbow, and what the research says about the treatment choices.
Read the guide Condition guideArm & leg pain
The difference between pain from a joint or muscle and pain traveling along a nerve.
Read the guide Condition guideWork-related pain
How your job, any past injury and a practical plan for getting back to work and activity fit together.
Read the guideWhat the studies found, and where they stop
How the research fits this area.
The trial studied persistent lateral elbow pain. At one year, people who had a steroid injection did worse than those who had a placebo, and physical therapy showed no significant one-year advantage. Those are group averages from one trial of one condition, so they describe what happened on average, not what your own elbow will do.
How we select and explain sources ↗Follow the evidence
Research, with context.
Selected published sources behind what we've written, each with what it found and what it can't tell us. We give you both halves because no paper can diagnose you or predict how your own care will go.
Effect of corticosteroid injection, physiotherapy, or both on clinical outcomes in patients with unilateral lateral epicondylalgia: a randomized controlled trial
165 adults with lateral elbow pain lasting more than six weeks.
What it foundSteroid recipients had lower recovery and more recurrence at one year than placebo recipients. Physiotherapy did not significantly change one-year recovery or recurrence.
What it can't tell usThe results apply to these approaches to persistent lateral elbow pain. They don't show that chiropractic care is superior.
Publication details & citation
Coombes et al. Effect of corticosteroid injection, physiotherapy, or both on clinical outcomes in patients with unilateral lateral epicondylalgia: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA. 2013. DOI: 10.1001/jama.2013.129.
Read the publication record
Our editorial policy explains how to read these sources and what our clinical-review labels mean.
Your next step
Bring your questions.
We’ll start there.
Your answers to those three questions are where we start. We go over your history and symptoms, examine you, and explain what we found before we recommend anything. If it turns out to be something another doctor should look at, we'll tell you.
Anatomy: BodyParts3D, © DBCLS, CC BY 4.0. Model & rendering credits. Return to the full body explorer.