Jackie Grossman

Jackie injured her elbow raking weeds out of the lake at her family cabin. “With the repetition of pulling out wads of weeds, I overstrained my elbow,” she says. That was in June; the pain persisted for four months. Jackie treated it with pain relievers, physical therapy, and home exercises. Those conservative treatments weren’t much help. An MRI showed tendon damage at the elbow (often called “tennis elbow”) with scar tissue and partial tearing of the tendon, like a frayed rope. Jackie could keep treating it at home . . . or have surgery.

Instead of open surgery, Jackie’s doctor Scott Koehler, MD suggested Tenex – an outpatient procedure to clean out scar tissue and calcifications, to stimulate the tear in her tendon to heal.
“He explained the procedure from beginning to end,” Jackie recalls. “He explained everything so well that I had no reservation about it at all.”

“Tendon pain is frustrating for patients and their healthcare team because recovery is so slow with traditional treatments,” Dr. Koehler says. “Tenex can stimulate more robust healing, even after months or years of symptoms. It really helps jumpstart the healing process.”

Jackie had the procedure at Northfield Hospital’s Surgery Center. “The care was fantastic,” she says. “The nurses were awesome.” The incision didn’t even need stitches – just steristrip bandages. Jackie had minor pain a few days afterwards, and a dull ache in her elbow for about a week. 

Since then, she’s back in action. That tendon is still a little tender: “If I do much repetitive motion, I can feel that I need to slow down a bit,” she says. Nothing that a few days at the cabin can’t cure.