Ouch! At The Elbow

You’re chopping vegetables, making a salad, brushing your hair, stacking kindling for the fireplace, hammering a nail---any of a multitude of actions that involve bending your hand backwards at your wrist---and you notice pain at your elbow.

What’s going on?

The muscles that bend your band backward at your wrist connect to the bone in your elbow. The tendon that attaches these muscles, called the “wrist extensors,” at the elbow can become irritated & inflammed, often due to overuse.

The result is that every time you activate your wrist extensor muscles when using your hand, there is a pull on the inflammed tendon at your elbow, and it hurts. 

What’s the solution? 

This situation can be very persistent of not treated. My protocol includes precise, gentle adjustments of the forearm and wrist with the Activator instrument, protection of the irritated tendon by use of a compressing band, anti-inflammatories including ice and topical arnica, and soft tissue therapy to the involved muscles.

Trigger Finger

         A common condition when a finger, or thumb, gets stuck in a bent position, and straightening it causes a painful “snap.”

This happens when inflammation develops around the tendon inside the tendon sheath (a tissue “tube” surrounding the tendon), and is called tenosynovitis. The inflammation narrows the space between the tendon and its sheath, and the thumb or finger gets “stuck” in the bent position.

This painful condition often results from repetitive gripping motions with the hand(s).

My treatment plan includes gently adjusting the involved finger, anti-inflammatory management, and splinting of the finger in a straightened position while the inflammation resolves.