Violinist with career affecting pain elbow to hand

by David
(Toronto )

I am a 45 year old violinist. This past summer, I dry walled my basement by myself. All the gripping while carrying the drywall left me with a lot of pain on the top of my elbow.

I did a bit of icing, some physio and then went on with life.

Since then, the pain has come back worse and is accompanied with numbness, tingling which has moved down to my hand.

My affected hand is even colder than the other as if the circulation is being cut off. What is confusing me is that I am also experiencing the pain in my shoulder and lats on the same side.

It is my dominant arm, so I am having to retrain how i use things, as I can't carrying or pick up things without causing pain. forget opening a jar. I have started the ice dipping today. Any other help with understanding why this is going into my shoulder and back would be much appreciated.

I don't know if and how i should or shouldn't be using muscles.



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Joshua Answers:

Hi David.

Sounds like you're 'stuck' too tight. Saqid another way, your tissue was already too tight, then you awkwardly carried a lot of drywall and irritated things, and now you're stuck tight, your nervous system is on the defense, you have a chronic Process of Inflammation in place, and are always an inch away from pain.

Such is the Pain Causing Dynamic.

It also sounds like your Scalene muscles are jacked up. Meaning, the little muscles on the front of your neck, which shouldn't lift the ribcage but do for a variety of reasons, are very unhappy. Again, this started from a habit of playing violin, and and the default activity of aging. Then you irritated things with the drywall, now your stuck.

If your Scalenes are stuck tight, they will/do constrict the nerves down the arm. Probably not circulation, but it's possible seeing as how it all works together. If they're really clamped down, they can and will.

The clues of painful shoulder and lats also point to forces pulling down and compressing the pipelines to the arm.

There's a lot of helpful information you can get off this website. Having said that, were I you, I would get a copy of my The Tennis Elbow Treatment That Works DVD (and the Quick Start Companion that comes with it). You'll have a complete set of know-how and directions.

If you do that, let me know and I'll throw in a copy of Reversing Whiplash ebook, which will show you how to open up the Scalenes and take pressure off the nerve/artery.


More questions, more answers.




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Joshua Tucker, B.A., C.M.T.
The Tendonitis Expert
www.TendonitisExpert.com