I helped my mother through this recently; am working through it in my knees now. It's a huge bitch, and it takes forever to kick, especially if you don't let the joint heal.
Things that will help:
- ibuprofen can help with instant pain relief and inflammation relief. you can even up the dosage of IB quite a bit for a short term; I've seen doses over 8-1200mg a day, in 3/4 portions (so 2-400mg 3-4x daily). But, know what you can do here and don't go too long - ulcers aren't fun.
- upping amount of Omega3s in diet (fish oil, look at EPA/DHA content in servings in Nutrition Facts and _nothing else_ to see how much is in there)
- glucosamine supplements should help if damage is bad enough that it's worth starting this; supplements take 30-60 days to take effect
- very light exercise, but a little compression magic take really help you out here. Wrapping above and below the joint with something like the
Rogue Voodoo band and going through the range of motion can really help to both a) improve circulation and squish that pooled-up blood out of the junky joint and b) grab a hold of the smaller muscles and tendons in the cluster and work them a little bit too. I can honestly say, for my knee tendonitis, nothing helps as much as doing this. The joint feels better almost instantly; my mother said the same upon trying it on her elbow. There was a bit about that for elbows on MWoD too, vid below.
- if you have any lack of flexibility in the surrounding muscle groups, try and iron that out with a stretching regimen, and only stretch after you've elevated your heart rate. inflexibility, if present, may be involved in the source of your problems.
good luck.