Tennis elbow ? Attn: Murthy, Rajendra and others

Dear Prescribers,
I am writing this regarding my mother's problem. She is 58 years old and very active.

She works in a bank and works all day in front of the computer screen. She was down with a pain in the neck (Right side) and was promptly given Ayurvedic treatment. The pain and also swelling started moving downwards through shoulder, into the Right arm. The doctor opined that the pain and swelling would move downward further until eventually, it would disappear and she would be healed completely. Unfortunately, the pain and swelling descended and settled on her right elbow - making it very painful. She still cannot do any jobs involving twisting her hand / bending her elbow. She still cannot wring the clothes. Also, she finds it painful while lifting even light weights (such as a steel utensil) with her right hand. There was no further reduction in pain and swelling with Ayurvedic treatment. She says the pain is exactly at her elbow where the hand bends.

When an allopath was consulted for an opinion, he wanted to inject Cortisone based medicine into her bone as he diagnosed it as Tennis Elbow. We refused the treatment. (In my mother's office, there are other employees with similar neck pains which descended to the elbow with Ayurvedic treatment and they took the cortisone injection and ended up with very bad cervical spondylitis problem).


I tried giving her Arnica 30 with the expectation that the swelling might reduce with increased blood circulation. It gave temporary result for the pain - and pain returned if medicine was not taken.

I switched over to Rhus Tox 200 - two doses which seem to help her as the pain is much less. One other thing that happened was that the swelling further descended and crossed her elbow and moved on to her forearm (close to the elbow). Now, there is no further change in the swelling with Rhus Tox 200, even though an occassional dose (once in 4-5 days or once a week) seems to alleviate the pain very nicely. Will Rhus Tox 1M prove effective in this case?

In any case, I request you to please suggest a remedy for her, so that she can be normal again. She is a workaholic at home as well as office.

Thanks,
-sriram