How is elbow bursitis treated?

How is elbow bursitis treated?

How elbow bursitis is treated depends on if it’s caused by an infection.

If you don’t have an infection, you’ll probably only need at-home treatments. These include:

• Rest: Avoiding the activity that caused your bursitis will help it heal.
• Medications: Over-the-counter NSAIDs will help reduce the pain and inflammation caused by bursitis.
• Immobilization: Stopping your elbow from moving with a splint or brace can help it heal.

If these treatments don’t work after three to six weeks, your provider might remove the excess fluid around your bursa (called aspiration) and give you a corticosteroid injection to reduce the inflammation.

Septic bursitis treatment

If you have an infection, your healthcare provider will prescribe antibiotics. You’ll need to take pills for around a week. Make sure to take your antibiotics for as long as your provider prescribes. Even if your symptoms improve, you need to take antibiotics for the length of time they were prescribed to make sure the medicine can kill all the infection remaining in your body.

Your provider might also aspirate your bursa to remove as much of the infected fluid as possible.

Elbow bursitis surgery

It’s rare to need surgery for elbow bursitis. If your symptoms don’t respond to non-surgical treatments — or if you have a severe infection that doesn’t get better after taking antibiotics — you might need surgery.

Surgery to remove your elbow bursa is an outpatient procedure, which means you’ll be able to go home the same day. After surgery, you’ll need a splint or brace to hold your elbow in place while it heals. You’ll need around a month to recover.