Over the last year or so, I’ve been fighting a particular problem with my elbows. Mostly my right one.
There are two main nerves that go through your arm: the Radial nerve, and the Ulnar nerve. Your Ulnar nerve is the one that passes across the outside of your elbow and down the outside of your forearm, ending in the hand next to the two smallest fingers. This nerve controls your sense of touch in your pinky and half of your ring finger. It also controls part of the wrist function, and so on.
I first started noticing it when I’d wake up in the middle of the night, and my two smaller fingers were numb. I figured it was just asleep, like when you sleep on your hand and your whole arm goes numb from lack of circulation. But that wasn’t it.
I finally connected the dots while attending a Hand Safety class at work, and the presenter mentioned Cubital Tunnel Syndrome, and then said the first symptoms were when your two smallest fingers go numb. I talked with him after the class, and he recommended using elbow braces, put on backwards, to keep me from flexing my elbows in my sleep and putting stress on that nerve.
Your Ulnar nerve runs through a passage with some tendons in a cavity called the Cubital Tunnel. What ends up happening is that as you get older (or after an injury), your tendons get inflamed or swollen, and that along with bending your elbow (which compresses the tunnel up to 55%) puts massive pressure on the Ulnar nerve. Eventually the nerve loses function, and you start losing sensation and/or motor function in that area as the nerve shuts down.
At this point, I haven’t had permanent numbness- it goes away after I wake up. But about 2 weeks ago, I (foolishly) arm wrestled a high schooler (and won!), and since then, my Ulnar nerve has been hurting non-stop. I’m to the point where I want to do something to prevent permanent damage, though quite a bit of damage has already been done: my stint installing wheels on tractors with a 20-pound impact gun pretty much wrecked my wrists and elbows, which weren’t great to start with.
There are some recommendations to help alleviate on going damage:
- Avoid activities that cause stress on the elbow joint (weight lifting, sports)
- Avoid resting the elbow on hard surfaces (at a desk, armrests in cars)
- Avoid bending the elbow for extended periods of time (while sleeping, carrying things)
Some of these will be easy to do, and others won’t. I’m just praying that there’s no long-term damage. However, anybody who’s been injured knows that the more you get injured, the longer it takes to recover, and the easier it is to get injured the next time. With me putting hundreds of miles in on my bike, I’m going to have to pay special attention to my elbows/wrists and my upper body position as I ride.
The inflammation compounds the issue (no pun intended) but even if I eliminate that, some damage has already been done, and I’m still going to need to be careful how I use my arms. I want to avoid surgery at any cost… I’ve already been cut up enough to last a lifetime.
I had hopes of lifting weights to improve my core and upper body muscle mass, but I won’t do it at the expense of losing my hand function. I seriously doubt I’ll start lifting now, so I’m going to focus on core muscles and flexibility, and keep cycling for cardio and lower body strength.
If you have problems with Ulnar nerve function, watch for the symptoms and make sure you take care of it before you get permanently injured! For more info, you can start reading here.