by Liz Bonis, WKRC

To read the full article, click HERE.

CINCINNATI (WKRC) – New research from the National Institutes of Health shows a combination therapy given at your doctor’s office really works to treat pain.

The team at OrthoCincy says pain is your body’s way of telling you that something is wrong, but a newer kind of therapy may help treat it.

“Anytime I lift something, I’m in a lot of pain,” said OrthoCincy patient Kelly Wenstrup.

Wenstrup needed this therapy for pain in her elbow.

“Goes all the way down my arm to my wrist,” she said.

It turns out, she has a common problem.

Dr. Trevor Stefanski confirmed this with an X-ray.

“That’s generally known as ‘tennis elbow.’ It’s also known as lateral epicondylitis,” he said.

Dr. Stefanski says physical therapy is always his first choice to treat it, so Wenstrup can get back to the range of motion she doesn’t have now.

“When we start getting tears in that area, or degenerative changes in that area, it can make it painful with wrist extension and gripping,” said Dr. Stefanski.

But to help Wenstrup be able to do that therapy, he also gave her an injection of the new combo therapy researched by the NIH.

“It’s a mixture between a short-acting, long-acting local anesthetic, and a corticosteroid, which is similar to the anti-inflammatory hormones that your body makes,” he said.

The study found the calming effect of the local anesthetic can provide safe, immediate pain relief, and help put Wenstrup back on the path to long-term healing.

“The idea is that, if we can get it to heal back up or at least get back to a baseline, then it may not flare up again, so it would keep it at bay,” Dr. Stefanski said.

As for Wenstrup’s eventual goal, she says she would like to go bowling again.

To learn more about Dr. Stefanski and other OrthoCincy physicians, click HERE.