Weeks 1–2
Pain
Calm the pain down.
Hands-on work on the irritated tendon and the tissue crowding the nerve takes the edge off, and we take the aggravating load off it, starting your very first visit.
What We Treat
Elbow, wrist and hand pain treatment in River Forest.
The jar you hand to somebody else. The zing through your forearm when you shake a hand. It’s fixable, and it starts with a cause-first evaluation, not a guess.
Sound Familiar?
Does this sound like you?
- Handing the jar to somebody else instead of opening it yourself
- A zing through the outside of your forearm when you shake someone’s hand
- Waking with a hand asleep and shaking it out at the edge of the bed
- Dropping a coffee cup you were sure you had hold of
- Your grip quitting on the third set, or the third bag of groceries
- Typing all morning, then feeling it all evening in your thumb and wrist
Two or more? You’re the one who does everything by hand, which is exactly why you’ve been working around this instead of fixing it. Keep reading.
Why It Happens
Elbow and wrist pain is a symptom. Something causes it.
Your arm doesn’t hurt for no reason. And it’s almost never just one thing. It’s usually some mix of four culprits: tendons at the elbow or wrist that got loaded faster than they could adapt. A nerve getting squeezed somewhere along its path, from the neck through the elbow to the carpal tunnel. Grip and forearm muscles that lost capacity, so every task costs more than it should. And the repetition that never stops, keyboard, tools, racquet, phone, reloading the same tissue before it settles.
None of that shows up on a quick glance. It takes a real, cause-first evaluation to sort out which one is actually driving your pain. That’s why a brace, rest, or a generic stretch so often falls short: they treat the symptom, not the source. Find the real cause, and the fix gets obvious.
The Honest Truth
Waiting on a tendon doesn’t make it wait on you.
If you keep waiting
- Your other arm quietly takes over the load, and starts complaining too
- Numbness that used to visit at night can start showing up in the middle of the day
- You grip less and lift less, which weakens the exact muscles meant to absorb the load
If you start this week
- You know the actual cause by the end of visit one
- Hands-on relief starts before you leave the building
- You get a plan with an endpoint: a real one, not an open tab of visits
Nobody regrets starting too early. The regret we hear about is always the waiting.
How We Fix It
The same four phases. Built for your arm.
Every plan has an endpoint. Here’s what the four phases look like for an elbow, a wrist or a hand.
Weeks 2–6
Prime
Get your motion back.
Targeted mobility work restores elbow, forearm and wrist motion, and frees the nerve to glide the way it’s supposed to.
Weeks 6–10
Perform
Make it strong enough to trust.
Progressive grip and forearm loading rebuilds the tendon capacity you were missing, which is the part that keeps it from coming back.
Weeks 10+
Prevent
Return better than before.
Your actual tasks, the keyboard, the tools, the racquet, get tested under real load before you’re cleared to go all-in: that’s the endpoint, not just another appointment.
Sean at Elevate helped me get back on the tennis court after a brutal case of tennis elbow. I feared that I wouldn’t be able to play tennis again, and with Sean’s help, now I’m able to play a couple of times a week. I appreciated the one on one model, which distinguishes Elevate from other PT providers where the therapist is working with multiple patients at any given time.
Shared by Elyse C. · Tennis elbow
Pain phase: a handshake is something you brace for
Prevent phase: the racquet, the toolbox and the jar lid are back in your hands
Elbow, wrist and hand pain
Four phases
Questions, Answered
What people ask before booking for elbow, wrist and hand pain.
Rest and a brace can take the edge off, and neither one builds the capacity that stopped the tendon from coping in the first place. That’s why the pain tends to come back the week you go back to normal. Tendons get better by being loaded correctly, gradually, in the right direction. A brace is a useful tool inside that plan, not a plan on its own.
Maybe, and it’s worth checking properly, because a nerve can get squeezed at several points between your neck and your fingers. Which fingers go numb, and what makes it start, tells us a lot. Your evaluation tests the whole path so we treat the spot that’s actually compressed, instead of the spot you feel it.
That depends on what the evaluation finds and how long you’ve been pushing through it, so we won’t guess before we’ve looked. What you get either way is a plan with an endpoint: four phases, Pain, Prime, Perform, and Prevent, and you’ll always know which one you’re in and what’s left. Not an open-ended string of appointments.
Book Your Visit
Ready when you are.
Request a time and a real person calls you back. No phone tree. No ‘someone will reach out.’ Just a plan.
- Hours Mon–Thu 7am–7pm · Fri 7am–5pm
- (708) 657-4038 Prefer to talk now? Call us.
- No referral needed in Illinois
5.0 · 120+ Google reviews
Typical response: under 2 business hours
Step 1 of 5
Request sent.
That’s the hard part done. We’ll call during business hours to lock in your time.
Visit Us
Care this good, this close.
Elevate Physical Therapy and Fitness
- 7607 North Ave, River Forest, IL 60305 (opens in a new tab)
- (708) 657-4038
- Fax: (312) 312-9631
- info@elevateptaf.com
- Mon–Thu 7am–7pm · Fri 7am–5pm