As temperatures rise and weekend warriors trade their couches for golf courses and garden beds, emergency rooms and sports medicine clinics are seeing a familiar uptick: golfer’s elbow.
The condition, a painful inflammation of the tendon on the inner side of the elbow, affects far more than just golfers. Dr. Brandon Kakos, a sports medicine physician at the Detroit Medical Center, says anyone who uses their hands is a potential candidate.
“Anyone that’s performing hand, wrist, and forearm type motion can be at risk,” Kakos said, citing weightlifters, gardeners, manual laborers, and even heavy computer users as common sufferers.
The culprit, he says, is often enthusiasm outpacing preparation.
“Sometimes we want to ramp up our activity too quickly. It’s a nice sunny day and we want to sit there and get out and maximize our time. But if our body’s not ready for that load, sometimes it can predispose us to injury.”
The symptoms can be surprisingly disruptive. Pain on the inner elbow, stiffness, and grip weakness can turn even mundane tasks into an ordeal. “Shaking hands, lifting up a coffee cup, turning a doorknob, all of those can cause a lot of pain and weakness,” Kakos said.
He also pointed to an underappreciated risk factor: overall metabolic health. “We’re also finding that our metabolic health is tied to our tendon health,” he said, noting that poor cholesterol levels and blood sugar control can weaken tendons over time. Hydration, nutrition, sleep, and stress management, he emphasized, all play a role.
For those already dealing with the condition, Kakos urged patience over panic. “Keeping a positive mindset is key here and to keep moving — understanding that this condition should improve with time,” he said. “The mainstay of treatment is therapy and physical therapy. We want to progressively load the tendon” to build strength safely, he added, with braces, medications, and procedures available if conservative treatment falls short.
His advice for prevention is simple: don’t try to make up for a winter of inactivity in a single afternoon. Gradually increase duration, frequency, and intensity - but never all at once.
DMC Sports Medicine physicians can be reached at dmc.org/orthopedics.