This is just a reference blog for other people because I couldn’t find what I wanted out on the internet.
In another post I started to get a very sharp pain in my elbow, which was initially diagnosed as bursitis, by both my PT and by a very good physio, it had all the symptoms, apart from the fact that it had no swelling, the symptoms were:
- No issue with movement or restriction.
- No loss of strength.
- An incredibly sharp and sudden pain when my elbow was touched on the bone (just the slightest brush was enough to trigger it), no other pain experienced.
This persisted to the point where it reached probably an 8 out of 10 on the jump up and down in pain scale. To the point where I decided that a trip to accident and emergency was in order. I went and was initially diagnosed with bursitis by the GP in attendance, I said that was what had been diagnosed before but none of the normal treatments had made any difference, he allowed me to go for an x-ray to confirm one way or another, when the x-ray came back it was determined what was actually happening was that the soft tissues in my elbow were being aggravated and inflamed and were in turn then pushing out my Ulnar nerve so that it was resting on the outside of my elbow. explaining the tenderness and pain.
He prescribed some really powerful painkillers, that ice was better for it than heat and advising me to use an elbow splint to sleep in 1. The painkillers didn’t do what I hoped, as my guts hated them more than my elbow liked them and the arm splint hurt like hell when I rolled over on it in the night. However now that I knew what it was and what it wasn’t, I could have a good check on what had changed in my life, Although it seemed the obvious culprit, I discounted the fitness I do, my PT is fanatical about keeping my activities even on both sides and this was very definitely effecting only one side.
Then I realised that one of the main changes recently was that I’d moved desks. And as someone that uses a trackball, I previously rested my elbow on an ordinary mouse wrist rest, just to keep my elbow off the table. however in my new desk, I didn’t do that as the mouse was much closer to the front of the desk. So I went and purchased one of those strange elbow arm things to rest my elbow on,
and while I was waiting, I found a very good make of gel pack that was soft after freezing, and took to putting that in the bottom of a bowl of water, letting the water chill to near freezing, then suspending my elbow in it without touching anything for 10 To 15 minutes.
This gave me amazing relief. The pain would completely recede, stay away for nearly three hours and then only very slowly start to come back. when the arm rest arrive I started using it. And now the pain stopped getting worse.
I’m not a doctor but I feel its a reasonable conclusion that as I was doing 60 hours a week with my elbow raised and no support using a trackball, I was rubbing a very small part of my elbow joint and inflaming it.
So if you are getting the same thing try:
- Resting the joint so its not constantly in use in on what seems low impact work.
- Proper Ice baths for that joint.
- ,the same that is used with repetitive strain injury in your elbow[↩]