Weeks 1–2
Pain
Take the bite out of it.
Manual therapy, dry needling and instrument-assisted soft tissue work on the irritated tendon, plus the load changes that stop you re-poking it daily.
What We Treat
Elbow, wrist and hand pain treatment in San Antonio.
The jar. The mouse. The kettlebell. Somewhere in there your forearm started filing complaints, and now a handshake makes you flinch. 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 someone else and acting like you were busy anyway
- Waking at 3am to shake the numbness out of your hand
- A hot stab on the outside of your elbow from lifting a coffee cup
- Typing through a burn in your forearm that shows up every Wednesday
- Dropping your keys for no reason you can explain to anyone
- Skipping pull-ups for a month and calling it a deload
Two or more? Keep reading.
Why It Happens
The elbow complains. The cause is often upstream.
The tendons at your elbow and wrist are load managers. They handle a certain amount of gripping, twisting and typing each week, and they adapt fine when that amount changes slowly. Trouble starts when it changes fast: a new job, a new grip, a new hobby, a new baby to carry. The tendon gets asked for more than it can rebuild. Nerves complicate it further. The ones that make your fingers go numb start at your neck and travel past your shoulder, your elbow and your wrist, and they can get squeezed anywhere along that route.
So the sore spot and the source are often two different places. That’s what a cause-first evaluation is for. You’re the one who keeps everything running for everyone else, which is exactly why you’ve been working one-handed for months instead of getting it looked at. Find the real cause and the fix stops being a brace from the pharmacy.
The Honest Truth
A tendon won’t heal while you keep poking it.
If you keep waiting
- You grip differently to protect it, and your wrist and shoulder inherit the job
- A tendon that stays irritated long enough gets thicker and slower to settle
- The numbness stops being a night thing and starts showing up mid-drive
If you start this week
- You find out whether it’s tendon, joint or nerve by the end of visit one
- Hands-on work starts that day, and so does the load change that stops the re-poking
- You get a plan with an endpoint, and a grip you can count on again
Nobody walks in here wishing they had waited longer. The sentence we actually hear is “I wish I’d done this sooner.”
How We Fix It
The same four phases. Built for your forearm.
Every plan has an endpoint. Here’s what the four phases look like for elbow, wrist and hand pain.
Weeks 2–6
Prime
Give the nerve room to move.
The 3am numbness stops. Joint work at the wrist, elbow and neck clears the spots where the nerve was getting squeezed.
Weeks 6–10
Perform
Rebuild the grip.
Tendons get better by being loaded on purpose. Progressive grip and forearm work, with blood flow restriction when heavy isn’t an option yet.
Weeks 10+
Prevent
Make sure the jar never wins again.
Your desk setup, your tools and your lifts get retested under real load before you’re cleared. That’s the endpoint, not another appointment.
They use a variety of techniques and tools, keeping the sessions unique. And are all about treating the root cause of the issue, not just where the symptoms show up (which is where other PTs I've been too have failed).
Shared by Darcy E. · Revival Performance patient
Today: handing the jar to somebody else
The goal: a grip you never have to think about
Elbow, wrist & hand pain
Pain to Prevent
Questions, Answered
What people ask before booking for elbow, wrist and hand pain.
A brace changes where the load lands. It doesn’t change how much load your tendon can handle, and that’s the actual problem. Braces are genuinely useful early, alongside a plan. On their own they tend to buy quiet weeks that end the day you take it off. Tendons get better by being loaded on purpose, in the right dose, in the right order.
It might be, and it might be coming from higher up. The nerves that feed your fingers start at your neck and pass your shoulder, elbow and wrist on the way down. Any of those spots can squeeze them, and the symptoms feel almost identical. We test each level by hand, so you find out where it’s actually happening instead of treating the last stop on the line.
Almost never completely. We change the dose, the grip and the angle so the tendon stops getting re-irritated while it rebuilds. Total rest feels great for a week and leaves the tendon weaker for the next attempt. You keep working and training, with rules that match what the exam actually found.
You get a plan with an endpoint, and you’ll have it before you leave your evaluation. Every plan runs the same four phases: Pain, Prime, Perform, Prevent. Tendons rebuild on their own schedule, so the honest answer depends on how irritated yours is and how it responds. You’ll always know which phase you’re in and what’s left, instead of an open tab 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 to Thu 6:30am to 7pm, Fri and Sat 6:30am to 12pm, Sun closed
- (210) 750-9004 Prefer to talk now? Call us.
- No referral needed to get started
5.0 · 300+ Google reviews
A real person calls you back
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.
Revival Performance Physical Therapy
- 10300 Heritage St Ste 160, San Antonio, TX 78216 (opens in new tab)
- (210) 750-9004
- Fax: (210) 866-0201
- info@revivalperformancept.com
- Mon to Thu 6:30am to 7pm, Fri and Sat 6:30am to 12pm, Sun closed