Tennis/Hockey elbow ??
 

I think I may have this. It was real bad about a year ago, but after a few months off it subsided. Now I am playing about 2-3 times a week and it is flaring back up. What kind of treatments or therapies have you used for this? Is time off the best medicine?

I dealt with this about a year ago after doing hours of stick handling and shooting every day.
Motrin/Ibuprofen and ice for pain relief is what I used but time off is the best remedy.

Was the Ibuprofen soley for pain, or did it help repair the tendon, too?

Just pain. It's an anti-inflammatory so it's good for pain and muscular soreness but it's not going to repair tendons. Your best bet is take time off. The last thing you want to do is permanent damage or create an even bigger setback with overworking it.

do full-range of motion stretches on your wrists, elbows, and shoulder joints. massage your forearms, biceps, triceps.

You might also have too stiff a stick. I stopped using my dolomite warrior stick because it was killing my elbow. I switched to a total one-two piece and all is good.

This could definitely be a reason. A stick too long and too stiff puts undue strain on the elbows and shoulders (oh dear...:sarcasm:)

I got this when I had an 87 flex cut down to 110-120 flex. It went away when I started using the right flex for my height (5'8, and I use 70 flex give or take).

This strategy (plus rest, icing and ibuprofen) is what I have to do. My wrist and hand get very sore and I suspect it's from tendonitis. I play 3 times a week and I really feel it those weeks. My wrist and hand thank me on the weeks I only play once or twice.

I know it sucks to take time off, but consider taking a couple weeks off to let it get back to normal and then make sure you stretch it nicely before AND DURING games.

With my wrists I occasionally get light sprains, and doing wrist stretches makes it worst. Rest, compression, and Advil take care of it with a few days.

I even got one of those goofy tennis elbow braces and honestly it didn't do much until I finally stopped using the stick. Literally never had a problem since, and that was six years ago.

I'm another vote for changing sticks. I used to have elbow pain when I was using a Vapor XVI on ice and a NB One50 shaft for roller. Then I switched to a One95 OPS for ice and a One95 shaft for roller, and the pain was gone within a few weeks.

The stick weight seems to be what made the difference for me, since the flex didn't change much, if at all.

Now I'm using a TotalOne OPS on ice and a TotalOne shaft for roller, and I'm still pain free.

I don't know much about this, but don't the pros tape their wrists? Particularly defensemen who take a lot of slap shots? Would that help?

One of my line mates is also a serious tennis player and he gets this from time to time. He swears by glucosamine pills to alleviate the joint pain.

wrist sprains are injuries that elongate the ligaments. you should not be stretching those. taping the wrists and wearing braces help those.

golf elbow is most commonly caused by shoulder/forearm muscles being too tight or shortened, which in turn limits your shoulder/elbow external rotation and puts extra forces on the ligaments through the elbow. stretching the shoulder muscles helps that particular problem.

you should tape your wrists. it's very safe on its own, and reduces risk of wrist sprains from falls, etc. unless you have a wrist injury that hasn't fully healed, it really won't help you on slapshots.