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Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Natural remedies for tennis elbow

Three months ago, I went to see a doctor to get my aching elbow for over 5 months checked up. Why did I wait that long to get a check up? It's because I was hoping that it would just heal one day. But it didn't. The doctor said it's tendonitis or tennis elbow and I was frightened he told me that if it won't get healed with the medicines he prescribed, he would inject my ailing elbow with steroids. The thing is , I really hate all kinds of medicine. So I was in a dilemma as the pain got worse to the point of I was no longer able to do my usual work even carrying my little boy. Tennis elbow, also called lateral epicondylitis, is a very common injury that results from overuse, injury, or strain of the tendon that attaches the forearm muscles. It could really be debilitating. So how did I treat it?

I was prescribed by the doctor with Arcoxia (etoricoxib, MSD) 90 mg and after taking just 2 tablets of it, I got a terrible gas pain and felt dizzy. I already told the doctor that I have allergies with amoxycillin and other antibiotics. I also told him that I have very bad gastritis yet he emphasized that I must really completely take the 5 tablets once a day. As the adverse effects were terrifying, I immediately stopped taking it after the second dose. Then, I had to search for alternatives in the net. Fortunately, I found natural ways of curing tennis elbow.

I already forgot which websites I visited but I combined the various ideas suggested. One thing I did to cure my tennis elbow was by using hot compress. I had to do it several times at night time when I was about to sleep. It was so relieving! I tried ice pack suggested by some bloggers but it didn't work for me. Then, of course, as commonly advised, I had to rest it from lifting heavy stuff. I also took fish oil and collagen. I stopped collagen after finishing one bottle but have continued with fish oil. Instead of the over-the-counter collagen, I followed one blogger who suggested for bovine or beef bone soup. Until now, I still follow the steps for preparing good bovine bone broth. I boil the bones with a little apple cider vinegar to leach out the minerals from the bones. I eat the softened cartilage, suck out the bone marrow and sip a lot of soup after I scoop out the fats. There's a lot more collagen in the interior of the bones or the bone marrow so I also scoop it out and eat it as suggested by one blogger specializing in medicine. I also blend pineapple with basil leaves and add a little honey. All these three have been reported as having anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. 

Now, I feel so relieved that I can carry my little boy again and do my normal tasks at home and at work. Before, even using the broom at home would make me cry and waiting for it to just heal in time never happened for 5 months. Thanks to all these natural alternatives my tennis elbow is gone. Although it's a combination of natural remedies in which I cannot point out which single remedy cured my tennis elbow, I would say that not any of them harmed me anyway unlike the drugs prescribed to me by the doctor. I believe, however, that the bovine soup and the heat compress did help me the most as every time I had either, without the pineapple and basil juice and the fish oil, I could feel the effect right away.