Man, I’m sorry to hear that. Yea, those 6 months of recovery didn’t include much exercise at all. It was PT as-prescribed and a lot of walking. Is surgery an option for you?
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I had a lot of yard work to do and that contributed to the problem. The tear I have is in a tendon that has been abused for quite a while. (it’s the mileage) and decided to go diva last year. It’s bad enough that the Tenex procedure is not guaranteed to help which is discouraging. That is considered surgery, and a larger hail Mary’ than the PRP. There is no way to replace the tendon, or to fix the tear, so I’m just managing the pain and hoping it doesn’t get worse, and trying to baby my right elbow as it was going down that hill too.
So quick answer, It’s an option, but of questionable value with a potential for badness. I was trying to be good before, and now have to ‘be gooder’
… The wife isn’t happy about having to pay for the stuff I used to do for free. 
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That’s a tough spot to be in for sure. I’ve heard of the Tennex procedure, but don’t know anyone who’s had it. I had a minor tear in my tendon, but it was way too small to operate on. Jeez, I hope you find a solution.
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Hmm… I was told that operating on the tendon wasn’t worth the effort as it would only inflame the area and tendons generally don’t heal the way other tissues do.
What’s happened is that over the years of overuse, it has had nerves and blood vessels invade the tendon tissue making it more sensitive and weaker, and it just tore. ‘Fixing it’ would mean reversing the degenerative process and removing the extra ‘junk’, this is all me paraphrasing what I’ve been told, and there are elbow replacements but they aren’t as sophisticated as knee replacements are, and so even my orthopedic surgeon who does knees and hips all the time does not do elbows, so thinking of it in totality, it appears that there isn’t much that can be done, except possibly doing the PRP again and handling the recovery process differently somehow.
It seems like I’ll just have to live with what I have, and hope like heck it doesn’t get worse. (Today, it’s hard to bend my elbow, so what the heck did I do last night? Arm wrestle a gorilla?!?! It hasn’t been this bad since pre-procedure 
)
Yea, I’m no surgeon so I can only speak to what they told me about surgery on my arm, which is they couldn’t do it.
My ortho told me that some people do need 2-3 PRP treatments. Might be something to discuss with your doctor. They did recommended taking it very easy on the recovery process.
It’s so debilitating to be in pain all the time. You have my empathy.
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Hi - recently had this procedure done and am in worse pain than pre prp. Curious how you are today and what your timeline looked like.
First question . Did they accidentally hit the nerve next to your tendon. Doctors should always ask if you feel any tingling or odd feeling when doing the injection.
not to my knowledge. didn’t have any issues during the injection. i watched the ultrasound during the procedure and the doc showed me the nerve and what she was looking for to avoid it.
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Hurt like hell for 24 hours. Then it was the same as pre-proceedure. I saw no impact whatsoever and didn’t go back for the second proceedure.
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Hiii So you didn’t feel any improvement or very little until week 8 or it was more gradually until week 8?
I got my second prp a year later but this time the injury it’s worse… so anyway I’m in my week 5 and I barely see any improvement its more like the arm it’s getting a bit more stronger than what it was so I can do certain things with pain i couldn’t do before but since I still have pain and my arm still limited I’m losing hope 
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Correct. It took about 8-10 weeks before I saw any major improvements. I was still going to PT and doing very light work until about 8 weeks in, then as it started to feel a bit better they increased the difficulty of the PT work. But yes, I was quite disappointed initially as nothing seemed to be working.
But by week 12 it was much better.
How our bodies react to PRP is interesting and I think, quite variable. They warn you at the doctor’s office that is may work great, may only somewhat work, or may not work at all. Some people get by with one treatment, some need two, and some need more than that. Unfortunately it’s not like a broken bone where docs can put on a cast and expect a 99% heal rate (and they have the ability to do bone grafts if you’re in the 1% that don’t heal. Been there, done that).
Anyway, I wish you the best of luck and from my experience of one (which may mean nothing to anyone else’s experience), I would pair the PRP with PT work as soon as your cleared to do that.
Hang in there and I hope it works for you.
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It worked for me. I know people that it did not really work. I think it’s sort of a crap shoot. We are trying to speed up the healing process. It’s like PT. Sometimes it helps other times not.
With these types of soft tissue injuries , time usually heals them. It’s just hard to wait it out.
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The first week is definitely the hardest part with the swelling, so don’t rush into PT yet. My elbow felt locked up for days, but I saw an orthopedic doctor in Orland Park from Skyline Ortho who mentioned the inflammatory response is actually what triggers the healing. Just stick to the rest protocol for now.
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