A friend of mine has had an elbow irritating him to the point he cant train hard or consistently. Everytime he throws a jab or straitens his arm out it hurts him to the point where he has to stop occasionally. I am thinking this is ligament damage of some sort, anything he can do to take care of this? He has taken time off only for it to still be an issue when he returns.
I just hurt my elbow from rolling.
I feel the best way to help your friend is to tell him
to take a break from workingout. Apply ice and heat.
I really want to workout but I know I'll hurt it again
if I do. It's hard but resting is the best way to go.
Hope it helps.
Probable tendinitis, no treatment will work if rest is not initiated. Chronic tendinitis sucks and can be tough to cure
howardo, How do you tell the differnce between tendonitis and ligament damage. (The doctors, even specialists are worthless "uh take two weeks off and see what happens"). I got armbarred a year and a half ago and it is getting worse. I can't straighten the arm, I also cant bend it all the way either.
Wouldn't tendonitis only hurt when flexing the muscle it was attached too? Also, say the biceps tendon was inflamed, I can see how extending the arm would stretch that particular tendon, buy why pain in both directions? (I know this is not biceps tendon, since I can touch that one with no pain, I was just using it as an example.)
"Wouldn't tendonitis only hurt when flexing the muscle it was
attached too?"
I had tendonitis at the origin of the long head of the biceps
(just below the medial head of the deltoid). I could do
pullups with a supinated grip but it hurt like hell to brush my
teeth, take off a belt, and do other random activities. I don't
exactly know why that was, but I would guess that because
each muscle has a number of different joint actions, it is hard
to predict exactly what motion will cause pain when you have
inflamation.
Ligament damage tends to cause an unstable joint and pain, tendonitis causes pain upon stress of the tendon. A long term injury, untreated, could cause muscle and tendon atrophy and account for the loss of motion. Dirk, I think an orthopod with a good exam and maybe a mri should be able to make the right diagnosis. It certainly sounds like it is not tendinitis
Thanks for the response howardo.
I won't go to doctor until it won't move. I went to an ortho this year (the 4th one) for my back. It was for an injury I received when I was 16. Just like the other 3 before him, he wanted to take x-rays even though I insisted it was soft tissue damage of some kind an won't show up on x-ray, and if he didn't believe me I could get the x-rays from the last doc for free.
He would have none of it, so I got more x-rays, a bill for $300, and a recomendation to "take it easy for 6 weeks and we'll follow it". I am 34 years old, did I mention I injured my back when I was 16. I don't think it is going to get any better in 6 weeks.
As a result, I don't go to the doctor until I already know what is wrong.