Common complaints after elbow surgery include swelling and bruising, an inability to fully straighten the elbow, pain that changes when movement resumes, and loss of sensation in the skin around the incision. Numbness or tingling in the fingers can follow operations where nerves were handled or moved, and it generally settles as the nerves recover.
Your surgical team's written instructions outrank anything else you read, this page included.
Some problems warrant calling your surgeon sooner rather than later, and should be discussed on the day they occur. Spreading redness or warmth, foul or heavy drainage, a fever, a dressing gone tight with swelling, or fingers turning pale or cold all qualify. Also, any pain that was previously improving but is now increasing is cause for a call. Anyone with chest pain, difficulty breathing, or fainting goes to the nearest emergency department immediately.
Some elbow surgeries, such as removal of loose bodies from the joint via small incisions, are considered minor and are performed on an outpatient basis; the arm is mobilized soon after the procedure. Other surgeries, like reattachment of a torn tendon or fixation of a fractured elbow, require more time to heal, during which the elbow must be immobilized in a cast or splint. Regardless of the type of surgery, the goal is to return the elbow to full function, rather than just to relieve pain. If your elbow has not been examined yet, elbow pain covers what else gives these symptoms.
Most elbow pain never makes it to the operating room. Tendon irritation on either side of the joint, an ache after a heavy week, stiffness that loosens as the arm gets warm: those will all improve if you reduce the load, do some therapy, and wait. Surgery comes when there's a structural problem rehabilitation can't fix.
The most obvious are the mechanical symptoms. An elbow that locks, catches in one place, or cannot fully straighten because something physical is in the way, a loose piece of bone or cartilage or a spur, will not improve with exercise alone. Once locking becomes prolonged or hard to force open, you're past the point of waiting it out.
Instability is another common symptom. An elbow that buckles when you push yourself up from sitting down, or that opens up on the inner side at the end of throwing, has a ligament no longer holding its side, and stretched ligaments rarely tighten on their own.
The third category is the nerve-related ones. You might have experienced intermittent tingling in the ring and pinky fingers when your elbow was bent, but when the tingling is constant regardless of how you hold your arm, it means your nerve is being pinched in all positions. If you've noticed progressive weakness in your grip, like dropping things or having difficulty holding cups, it could mean you've already developed some muscle wasting, which doesn't always come back.
None of this makes conservative care pointless. A brace, adjusted activities, physical therapy, and the non-surgical options regenerative medicine lays out settle most elbows. What moves an elbow toward surgery is not how much it hurts but why. If yours shows any of the signs above, request an appointment rather than sitting through another month.
The biceps has a tendon at each end. The one at the elbow attaches the muscle to the radius, the forearm bone on the side of your thumb, and does most of the work when you turn your palm up.
The classic one is a heavy pull straightening the elbow against a still-contracting biceps, a deadlift, a curl you can't control, a shift in the load.
You feel something tear in the front of your elbow, the joint swells and bruises rapidly, and the biceps contracts higher up on the arm.
One of the simplest tests requires no equipment. The examiner hooks a finger under the biceps tendon at the bend of the elbow while you rotate your palm upward.
A healthy tendon will feel like a tight rope; when completely ruptured, there is no tendon for the examiner to grab. A torn tendon also takes most of that palm-up turning strength right along with it.
Plain x-rays in this setting are often normal because they visualize bone, not tendons.
Ultrasound will rapidly confirm a complete tear, while an MRI supplies the surgical plan: whether the tear is complete or partial, and how far the tendon has pulled back into the upper arm. The degree of retraction determines if the tendon can be re-attached directly or the surgery must bridge a gap.
The surgeon brings the tendon back to its original position on the bone, and holds it in place until it heals in. They reach the tendon through one incision at the front of the elbow, or a small front-and-back pair, and hold it in place with a button toggled behind a drilled tunnel, a screw that sits next to the tendon, or stitches that pass through the bone. None of these changes the basic idea: tendon held still against bone until bone grows into it.
The timing is what you have a say in. If a tendon is repaired soon after it tears, it's easy to put it back where it came from. If it waits too long, the muscle shortens and scars, and the gap has to be bridged with graft tissue.
The initial pain goes away on its own, so just waiting to see if the arm settles turns a simple fix into a major reconstruction. If the problem is at the top of your arm, you may have a biceps tendon that has torn at the shoulder. shoulder pain is the better start.
No single number answers this question, and anyone who hands you one has not looked at your elbow. The timeline depends on what was repaired and how it is protected while it heals, and your surgeon's written instructions outrank everything on this page. Most elbow procedures are outpatient, so you go home the same afternoon unless the operation or your health says otherwise. The recovery runs in this order.
The arm goes into a splint or sling at the angle your surgeon chose, propped higher than feels necessary. Ice and medication run as your discharge paperwork states, and moving your fingers, hand, and wrist starts right away, because finger motion helps drain the swelling.
An elbow resents being kept still, so bending and straightening begin early and stay closely watched on most protocols. Preventing stiffness is easier than correcting it, which is why the active motion is so important during those initial weeks.
The last motion to return is usually full extension, which comes back through gentle, repeated work at the end of the range rather than pushing. A hard-pushed elbow tends to swell and give way.
Desk work comes back first, arm supported, brace on if you were given one.
Work that requires gripping, rotating tools and carrying load will return later, so you can work with your employer ahead of time for modified duty.
Finally, loading. The reason that loading is last is that tendon healing into bone or bone held by a plate is governed by biology, not by how the arm feels. And it often feels ready long before the tissue is.
None of this is a timetable. Each phase advances on what the elbow can do, not on what the calendar says, and an activity that leaves the joint stiff or sore the next day gets repeated rather than passed. Ask your surgeon for the protocol written for your exact procedure, and follow it above everything else.
Elbow surgery isn't just one surgery, but a collection of them, grouped according to what has failed, and the majority of a first visit is spent figuring out which group an elbow belongs in.
The inner ligament is the throwing ligament, and its operation is Tommy John surgery. The ligaments on the outer side usually fail during a dislocation, leaving an elbow that feels loose and unstable as it straightens. Fresh, healthy tissue can be reattached; otherwise a graft rebuilds it.
The front biceps and back triceps tendons both rupture via avulsion, not mid-substance tear, and are treated the same.
Triceps tears are more commonly missed; they masquerade as bruises with a subtle inability to extend against resistance.
Arthroscopy, working through a camera and a few small openings, can clean out loose pieces, trim bone spurs that block full motion, release a tight joint, and address worn cartilage on the outer half of the elbow, a familiar problem in young baseball pitchers and gymnasts. That is joint preservation in its most literal sense.
A fracture that's displaced, or one that involves the joint surface, is rebuilt with plates and screws and moved early, because the elbow stiffens quickly.
Nerve surgery is its own category. The ulnar nerve runs behind the bony bump on the inner elbow and supplies feeling to the ring and little fingers. Squeezed there, it produces what doctors call cubital tunnel syndrome, and the operation either frees the nerve where it lies or moves it to the front of the elbow.
The process to get there is more important than the list. It begins with a specific diagnosis and considers the function of the arm, the strength of the tissues, and whether the non-operative management has had a fair trial.
Two of the credentials on record sit behind this range of work. Completed advanced fellowship training in Complex Orthopedic Trauma at Brown University's Level I trauma center. Member of the American Orthopaedic Association (AOA).
The trauma training matters here because elbows also break in one moment rather than wearing out over years, and Atlanta sends both kinds of patients through this door. If your elbow fits any of these groups, request an appointment and begin with the diagnosis.
If pain is limiting the way you train, work, sleep, or move, an evaluation can turn uncertainty into a practical next-step plan.
Book an appointment →Explain what you want to return to, not only what hurts.
Look for the combination of findings that best explains the symptoms.
Understand the likely cause, whether imaging helps, and what comes next.
Atlanta Sports Medicine Institute helps active patients understand what may be driving their symptoms and compare appropriate treatment paths. The experience should be precise, understandable, and tied to the activities each patient wants to return to.
No code appears on this page, because publishing the wrong one causes real problems. Diagnosis codes are billing terms, and the correct one depends on which arm, whether the tear is complete, and whether it is a first visit. Your operative report and your doctor's office carry the right code. If you are checking benefits or filling out a form, ask the office rather than guessing.
It's sore, especially during the first couple of days, but it eases as time goes on. Your elbow doesn't have much protection, so swelling and stiffness make up a lot of the discomfort in the beginning weeks, and both of those subside as your mobility comes back. Your discharge instructions cover the first days at home. What matters is the trend, not the level. If your pain increases after having decreased, or if there's any associated redness, heat or fever, call your surgeon's office the same day.
Do not loosen, remove or re-wrap a splint, brace or dressing yourself and do not avoid the motion work just because your elbow is sore. A stiff elbow is much harder to correct than a sore one. Do not load your arm early because it "feels good." A tendon that heals into bone has no forewarning when it is ready to break. Do not stop taking a prescribed antibiotic or blood thinner based on what you read here and do not drive while wearing a splint or brace, or while taking anything that makes you drowsy, until your surgeon says otherwise. If there is any conflict between your discharge sheet and this page, follow your discharge sheet.
Tell us what is bothering you and we will get you in front of the right person.
