Elbow Saga

Well my elbow hurts. A lot. It has been for some time now. Starting in Jan/Feb of 2014 after a big dead lift. I set my new max and was very happy about it. A couple of days later my forearm muscles hurt and discussing it with my trainer it seemed rather obvious it was from gripping the bar so hard. Made sense. Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation (RICE) all done per usual on anything that hurts. That helped a bit, but nothing really improved for real. May of 2014 I see a chiropractor through a chance encounter. All in all, those treatments helped quite a bit, but again, no real healing. I got a cortisone shot in July if 2014. Voila! Much better. But then the pain came back around January of this year (2015). I have been fighting it ever since. In July of 2015 I again had a cortisone shot before we left on vacation. This time very little help indeed. I went again to my orthopedist and had an MRI done. Ick. 40% tear in my right extensor tendon. Commonly known as Tennis Elbow (although I've never played). Anyway, on Wednesday I had a procedure done called TENEX. I don't know if I am pleased yet with it or not, but I really do not want full on surgery if I can avoid it. It hurts a lot although the radiating pain into my shoulder and back are much less. I talked with Alan (a friend in BSF leadership with me) this morning about it and his wife has had similar issues. She had TENEX and it did not help. She got the surgery (whatever they do in the cut world) and is perfect now. He just told me not to get discouraged if this does not work and to not sweat the surgery and rehab. I don't know what the next so many weeks will bring, but I will be happy when I can get more than a few hours of sleep a night.