Hello Sharon,
I too have tendonitis. I'm right handed but have managed to injure my
left elbow. Shoveling manure and using nippers can really light that
sucker up. I have a TENS unit
http://equineracing.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc? that I have used with
much success on my horse's previously slightly bowed tendon and on
his previously chronic sore back. Last week after a day of mucking my
elbow was on fire and I decided to put the TENS electrodes on my
elbow under an elastic cuff http://www.futurous.com/index1.asp which
held them firmly in place while I slept. I left the unit on the
prescribed horse settings of "pulse width 70" and "pulse rate 2 per
second" There is a third dial that controls the signal strength which
you can use to adjust to exactly how much you want the muscles to
twitch. I placed the electrodes on the inside of my arm, close
together, above and below the side elbow knob because that was where
it really hurt. One above and one below the knob in line with my
wrist. I had it on many hours while I adjusted the strength of the
pulse up and down to see what was gonna happen and it definitely was
hitting exactly where it hurt. I finally picked a setting that I
thought would be okay for the rest of the night and went to sleep.
Now I am not a doctor nor do I play one on TV so this is not a
recommendation for treatment, just my experience. The next morning I
was shocked :-D to find almost all the pain gone from my elbow. This
elbow generally took over a week for the pain to get back down to a
level where I could use it again but it would still hurt. My grip was
a bit fatigued and my 3 smaller fingers were slightly muscle-sore
from twitching all night. I removed the elastic cuff and loosened up
the arm then started gripping and pulling in ways that normally would
light up that sore tendon and found that I could use full power and
get only a hint of soreness. You might check out the links up above
and see if the money you would spend on compound nippers might be
better spent on a TENS unit. Good Luck,
Don Huston

At 10:46 AM 6/24/2007 Sunday, Sharon wrote:

>Hello All:
>I don't write often, but would love to obtain your thoughts and advice.
>In recent months a re-occurring elbow injury (tendonitis) is making
>trimming difficult for me,

Don Huston at cox dot net
SanDiego, Calif