The pain of tennis elbow, medically known as lateral epicondylitis, is frustrating. Daily activities, such as opening doors, clicking the buttons of a computer mouse, typing on a keyboard, picking up a briefcase or backpack, and zipping up a coat, are all hard to accomplish without significant pain.

There are several ways you can treat your tennis elbow: surgery, rest, exercise (physical therapy).

Rest is the easiest and least painful way to treat your symptoms; it is usually the first option a doctor will suggest. If you are able to rest your arm when you first notice the symptoms, it is possible that this is all your arm will need. However, by the time most people really decide to do something about the pain, this alone isn't enough to heal it... but it's a good first step.

Physical therapy, in conjunction with rest, is your best bet for healing your arm. It strengthens the muscles around your inflamed tendons and helps to improve the range of motion in your arm.

But what happens if you don't decide to do something about your arm before it's too late? And by too late, I mean letting your arm get to a point where tennis elbow surgery is your only option.

Your doctor could suggest surgery if everything else hasn't worked, including rest, compression (wearing a brace), cortisone shots (not a cure, but can get rid of the pain for awhile), and physical therapy

Surgery should be a last resort because it's invasive and there's no guarantee it will work. Approximately 10-20 percent of the surgeries don't repair the damage, with some requiring more than one surgery to fix their arm.

Tennis elbow surgery involves making an incision just over the elbow, removal of muscle surrounding the inflamed tendon, and reattachment of remaining muscle back to the bone. This can be done one of two ways: open or arthroscopic. Both involve an incision, but the arthroscopic incision is smaller.

Surgery, no matter whether it's open or arthroscopic, has risks associated with it. There is always a chance for infection when you are cutting into the skin. Depending on how good your surgeon is, nerve damage is always a possibility. Losing range of motion in your arm can happen - mostly as it relates to not being able to straighten your arm fully. For months after the surgery, rehabilitation is needed to recondition the muscles; this isn't a risk exactly, but it can be time consuming and painful.

Tennis elbow surgery is something that should be avoided because of the risks discussed above. The best way to do this is by getting a proper diagnosis from a doctor and starting exercises to strengthen the muscles surrounding the injured tendon before too much damage is done.