Lifting weights, pain and swelling in wrist and forearm, took a month off but it's back

by Nick
(Toronto)

Ok so about 3 years ago I started working out and lifting weights. A few months in all of a sudden one day my wrist puffed out bug time. It looked like a lump.

I stopped working out for a few days and stupidly did not see a doctor. When the pain went away I started working out again even though the lump did not go down. It had shrunk a little bit but it got to a point where it did not seem to get any smaller.

It was fine and was not causing pain. So I continued working out and every now and then it started hurting.

I thought it was a calcium deposit or a ganglion cyst ( but only while I was at the gym working out and very rarely ) until recently one day my forearm and wrist puffed out huge and I was in immense pain. I had an xray and an ultrasound and the results came back that it was tendonitis. I took a month and a half off and it went down but it still was not gone completely.

Again it seemed to get to the point where it stopped getting smaller. And so I tried lightly working out again. And after about a week it puffed up and started hurting again. But nowhere near as bad and didn't last as long. And again I took a month and a half off. It went down again but is still there. I can feel it and I can move it around in my wrist.

So I'm wondering if I have caused some permanent damage after having it for so long and what can I do to try and deal with it?



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Joshua Answers:

Hi Nick.

Well it's good you ruled out calcium deposit and ganglion cyst.

Xrays however are a very poor choice when looking for tendon tears of all but the biggest size.

So. Have you injured your self permanently? Unlikely.

Well, let me rephrase that. If you don't do something to effectively fix the problem, then yes, it certainly could be 'permanent'.

That's just how the Tendonitis dynamic works.

You work out, muscles and connective tissue get tighter and tighter, maybe there's some little wear and tear microtrauma, a Process of Inflammation kicks in, the Pain Causing Dynamic gets worse and worse, the nervous system freaks out and turns up the dial and makes everything worse.

It sound like your particular situation results in a sudden massive inflammation response. Or at least, you're predisposed to a lot of swelling.

It doesn't -necessarily- mean that you're injured. But it definitely means that there's a mechanism in place that results in an inability to workout without triggering an injury response.

And, for the record, no amount of Rest or time off is going to help. Rest isn't a cure, not even close.

The first thing you need to do is learn How To Reduce Inflammation.

Getting my Reversing Wrist Tendonitis ebook is obviously my main recommendation, for a variety of reasons including it contains a complete explanation of why you have pain/problem and a plan for what to do about it to reverse the dynamic.

Regardless, start putting time and effort into knocking out that inflammation.

Let me know what happens with that.




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