I would just like to get someone's opinion on this. My son, a sophomore, is a Pitcher/Utility player for his high school JV team. During the first week of workouts he experienced some elbow pain while pitching, but attributed it to early season soreness and treated it with ice. The pain continued throughout tryouts, then more during the first few weeks of practice. He tried resting for a few days a couple times but the pain immediately returned upon throwing. He also stopped throwing curveballs, but that didn't alleviate the problem. So I took him to a local pediatric sports medicine doctor. She diagnosed tendinitis of the triceps where it joins the elbow and told him to stop throwing for a few weeks and to begin a physical therapy program, then see her again in one month. He is in his 3rd week of PT and has begun to hit in practice and also throw about 50% every few days with no setbacks yet, so all appears to be on schedule.
But he's starting to get some flak from his coach. Throughout the last couple weeks my son said the coach has made comments like "we need to get you back out there soon" and "when are you going to try getting back out there"? We asked his therapists if he should see the doc earlier for release, but the recommendation is not to push it and risk losing part or most of summer season, too. He also said go ahead and start hitting plus the light throwing. My son has relayed this to the coach, so he is aware of it. But last night, in front of most of the team, he called him out on it, saying he should have been ready by now. He also bluntly asked another player, whose dad is a physician, what he thinks his dad would say about it. The player of course had no answer, but it really embarrassed my son even though some of the other kids later said they supported him and not to let it bother him.
But it kind of bothers me. Are we being overcautious? I know the coach wants to get him on the field and my son is anxious to play, too. My feelings are to get the PT program complete and not push it by playing too soon and risking further injury. We're about 8 days from return to the doctor, but maybe he should get going – just to get the coach off his back - and deal with it later if the injury flares up again. He is getting anxious to play, and there is only about a month left in the season. Any thoughts would be appreciated.