Yes I had tennis elbow in both arms. It hurt me for 6 years!
Sore to the touch elbows and burning pain down my arms.
It finally went away...

It's a repetitive motion injury And pruning for the first time in the season you're using muscles you haven't used all winter and they're mad at you, lol! Take it easy for a few days and let it rest and it should be fine.

As much as I hate to admit it, as I grow older, I have found that I have to do leg stretches, shoulder exercises, back exercises before I prune. It's the only way I can come away without pain ... that statement does not include injuries inflicted by the roses.

I also have to be careful to do short pruning sessions at the beginning of the season so that my hands don't hurt, so I have learned to switch tasks as I work in the garden and go from pruning to weeding and mulching and then back to pruning.

Arggggggghhh.

Smiles,
Lyn

Clenching the hand pruners does flex the muscle atop the forearm whose tendon attachment site could become inflamed. Maybe you could use loppers without irritating it.

I use anvil loppers for the heavy pruning and for reaching into thorny places. If cuts aren't perfect, the rose doesn't mind.

Sometimes using hedge shears stirs up my tennis elbow. In that case, it's the recurring shocks.

Michael, I think it was the the loppers that did it. 2 weeks ago I was removing some butterfly bushes, and you know how thick their roots get. And I did use the hedge clipper for a bit last weekend. Luckily it's rainy out today, so I've been forced to rest my elbow for now.

Sounds like a good reason for spreading out pruning over a longer period. I prune all winter long, interspersing it with other kinds of cleanup: could this be why I've never had these kinds of problems? I'm old enough for them. There's something to be said for a pottering style of maintenance.

I hope it's not tennis elbow because it can be so slow to go away. (Or maybe we should call it "pruning elbow?") No more pruning with that arm for you for now!!

I am so glad that I read this post. I confess that my hurts did not come from pruning--we have about eight inches of snow today and I am confined to the house. I have to admit to the age thing though and have tibial anterior tendonitis, a bone spur and plantar fasciitis , all in my left foot--giving me fits right now, right when I will be getting busy with my spring chores. Just felt the need to vent when I read your posts--hope you will forgive me for intruding . Anyway, I do at least feel a little vindication. Barb

No intrusion at all, Barb. On the contrary, this is the place to vent some of that frustration.

For me it's my right hip. This just start this winter. I'll be fine one minute and the next it will lock up and I can't move. Bending of any type is painful and sitting down is getting awkward and painful. I'm so looking forward to getting out into my garden but I have no idea what to expect. I'm worried that I won't be able to get up and down any more. But I'm already thinking ahead. Planning to bring a cane out with me to help me if I need it. I won't give up that's for sure!

I know where you're coming from - I had "tennis elbow" a few years back from roses, but in my case it was rose planting. I tend to amend the soil with compost whenever I plant a new rose, and my method up to that point had been to pour all the various soil types back into the planting hole then mix the soil at ground level with my hands (palm up). That resulted in the repetitive motion problems of tennis elbow, particularly in my dominant right hand.

My immediate solution that my doctor recommended was to get one of those pressure bands meant for tennis elbow from places like Walgreens that you velcro onto your sore arm. I don't know if it reminds you to move differently or puts pressure slightly on the injured parts, but it did definitely speed recovery for me. On top of the ice and relative rest, of course. And changing my method of whatever caused the injury in the first place. Now I mix the soil in 5-gallon pots outside of the hole and dump it back in the hole. In your case, you might want to look into one of those ergonomic pruners that's easier on your hand, and making a conscious effort to stop and stretch your hand/arm periodically and not doing too much at once next time (famous last words).

Sympathies on the injury, at prime rose time no less. We're HOPING the snow melts in time for spring pruning, but nary a sign of forsythia and the ground is frozen solid.

Cynthia

I haven't had tennis elbow from pruning (I did have shin splits from tennis when I played in high school and college though haha), but I have had what the doctor called a "morton's neuroma" in my digging foot! After a couple of months of severe foot pain when walking, I finally went to an orthopedic doctor and he did x-rays. What he found was a thickening of tissue on the nerve between two toes on my right foot, . He said it was caused by irritation or repetative force on that area of my foot and forms a sort of benign tumor. When he asked me if I did any activity that would cause pressure in that area....I said digging in the garden! Two cortizone shots into the nerve (and a lot of pain from the shots) later, it went away...and luckily hasn't come back!

Tammy

I wanted to post this earlier but had to get permission first. Oh, I wish I could write like this !

The author was a rose hybridizer and this was published in an older New Zealand Rose Journal. I hope you all laugh as much as I did when you read this.

Nola Murray. Wanganui Rose Society. Hybridising Hazards.

For all that raising roses at my age does have its disadvantages: I'm prone to all sorts of mechanical troubles. Back-ache! How I've learnt to live with that one! As the curtain rises on the germinating seeds, the act commences, and I'm at risk.
Each year the ground recedes at an alarming rate as the structure weakens at the seams. Later on, when I'm weeding, fact-facing and finding among the seedlings, giraffe-like, my legs adopt a sort of flared-out position, and nuts and bolts fly everywhere. Talk about the agony and the ecstacy!

My eyes take their share of punishment too. When like a bee, I zoom on to the stigmas, I need my glasses. I put them on, I pull them off and attack them furiously with hard rubbing, and lots and lots of huffing and puffing. I replace them only to find that I'm no better off. It's not the glasses; it's old age creaking up and not seeing eye to eye with me.

Why can't all roses be accommodating and have nice long stamens that I can cut off with a pair of scissors? Some stamens, with their hide-and-seek games, seem bent on destroying me. My eyes smart, and, as the bough bends, the back aches and my legs feel like inflated balloons about to burst, but, as I start my skid on the disaster course, knotheadedness saves the day and - drives me on. It's a battle I'm determined to win. Straightening up-and it's no easy matter coming from right angles to the perpendicular-I emit a groan, breathe out some explosive unmentionables, grit my teeth and bend to the attack again. No elusive stamen is going to foil me! When you lack an eye like an eagle and want to cross pollinate, you just have to put up with all sorts of steering column problems.

Smiles,
Lyn