A method treating the symptoms of tendonitis, arthritis, capsulities, lymphedema and ganglion cysts in the arm of a user which involves the steps of placing a pressure imparting device around selected portions of the user's arm and applying controlled pressure to the discrete areas of the skin directly overlying the selected portions. The pressure imparting device includes two discrete compression plates that are placed around selected portions of the user's arm and are drawn toward one another to apply bipolar transaxial compression of equal magnitude simultaneously to discrete areas of the skin directly overlying the selected portions.