Cell Phone

Mobile Phone and Elbow Pain

A report from CBS 3 in New York discusses the effect that prolonged use of a cell phone can have on the onset of elbow pain.

The condition has been dubbed “cell phone elbow“.

Those who experience it get a variety of elbow and forearm symptoms including pain, numbness and tingling in the forearm and hand. It may be the result of a nerve being nipped at the elbow – if severe the nerve damage and symptoms can be persistent.

Experts said it is important to pay attention to any signs of cell phone elbow. Symptoms include pain running down the arm or tingling and numbness in the ring finger and pinky.

The problem arises in the large ulnar nerve which runs just below the skin behind the elbow. It’s the nerve that gets tweaked when we hit our “funny bone”
Read More about cell phone elbow

Tennis Elbow Support

Tennis Elbow Strap

If you have tennis elbow then there are several options open to you for treatment.

A tennis elbow brace might improve your quality of life. You should remember that the natural history of the condition is for it to improve spontaneously over time. In other words, there’s no need to rush to a treatment decision unless things are simply intolerable for you.

You might eventually need to consider hands on physiotherapy treatment or even an injection but many tennis elbow patients find that they can get through their day to day life and take part in their sport with the help of a tennis elbow brace or an elbow support strap.

Tennis elbow arises because the muscles of the back of the forearm attach themselves to a small area of bone at the outer side of the elbow. If this bone area becomes inflamed through overuse then these muscles cause a tugging effect on the inflamed bone area. This is why tennis elbow is so painful when you are lifting or gripping.

The idea of the tennis elbow brace or elbow support strap is to press down into these muscles just a little bit away from the inflamed bone area. This diffuses some of the force and lessens the tugging effect.

If you have tennis elbow then do try an elbow brace – it may well give you significant relief

More on tennis elbow treatment

Tennis elbow symptom recognition

Notes on the symptoms of tennis elbow

Tennis elbow pain:

• is felt at or around the outer boney prominence at the elbow
• this boney bump is called the lateral epicondylitis
• lateral epicondylitis is another name for tennis elbow
• sometimes spreads down the back of the forearm towards the wrist

Tennis Elbow Symptoms also include:

• pins and needles around the back of the elbow (although be careful since this can sometimes indicate that the pain is related to a neck problem rather than to tennis elbow)
• numbness or burning ache in the webspace between the thumb and index finger – this is due to irritation of a nerve at the elbow near to the tennis elbow area

Tennis Elbow Symptoms are made worse by

• lifting or carrying heavy objects – particularly if lifted with the back of the hand uppermost
• gripping strongly
• racket sports

Tennis elbow symptoms are eased by;

• massage and local anti-inflammatory creams
• the use of a tennis elbow clasp or brace
• physiotherapy
• injections

Read more about tennis elbow treatment

Heel pain is a common problem and can be very disabling or debilitating. The pain in the heel caused by a heel spur or by plantar fasciitis can be severe and may persist for weeks or months. Treatment at an early stage can make a big difference to quality of life and day to day function.

Treatment advice for heel pain is often confusing and can sometimes seem contradictory. Getting good quality treatment information from a heel pain expert is an important issue if you want to find relief from your painful heel or plantar fasciitis.

Local anti-inflammatory gels often help. Anti-inflammatory pain killers such as ibuprofen can be beneficial.

If these simple measures fail to relieve the foot pain then an injection of steroid and local anaesthetic often gives dramatic and lasting relief

Physical therapy

Stretch the calf and the achilles tendon

Friction massage across the inflamed area is often very helpful – useful tip – the sufferer can do this for himself or herself by trapping a golf ball between the heel and the floor in a stockinged foot and rolling it around the heel with pressure down towards the floor.

I once suffered personally from Heel Spur Pain and was lucky enough to be given an electronic foot massage unit to try by a friend. No miracle cure but boy did it make life easier for a few weeks.

Sort out the mechanics of the foot

Arch supports – best not used until the pain has settled a bit – but very important in preventing recurrence

Heel pads – these come in a variety of styles but are often helpful. A better option may be to invest in a really good pair of running shoes – seek out a specialist running shop (whatever age or size you are) and ask for help to choose a pair that feel right for you. Try on at least three or four different manufacturers shoes – You’ll know when you find the right ones – and the difference when you walk will be amazing.

If fashion or practicality dictates that you simply must keep wearing your own day to day shoes then purchase a pair of good quality heel cushions. Remember that time will eventually resolve most heel pain of this type but you need to find a way to keep functional in the meantime – don’t you!

Heel Spur Pain

Pain in the heel in the morning

Heel spur pain is caused by inflammation of the plantar fascia – the gristle on the sole of the foot – where it anchors itself to the front of the heel bone. The medical name for the heel bone is the calcaneum and the spur can sometimes be referred to as a calcaneal spur.

Typically the pain of a heel spur is felt at the front of the heel and is often worse first thing in the morning on putting the painful foot to the ground.

Heel Spur pain of this sort is one of the most disabling pain conditions known. Those who have it experience a searing pain along the sole of the foot – and the pain seems to spread from the heel spur area towards the big toe.

Heel Spur pain or front of heel pain often arises after unaccustomed activity such as walking or running. Alternatively, the heel pain may be triggered by day to day walking in boots or shoes that do not properly support the arch of the foot . Wellington boots are a common heel spur culprit but other types of footwear can also be at fault.

It may also be linked to being overweigh or to having feet with a naturally flat arch or other unusual feet shape patterns

Rarely this heel pain condition can be part of a more widespread form of arthritis but this is unusual. In most sufferers the underlying trigger is a loss of the arch of the foot – so called flat feet!

The heel discomfort of a heel spur is worse when walking and usually eased by rest. It can be made worse by tightness in the muscles of the calf or in the achilles tendon and stretching these tissues can be helpful in relieving the discomfort in the heel.

A doctor, podiatrist or physical therapist who examines a patient with this type of heel pain will typically find a loss of the arch of the foot, tightness in the calf muscles and a very, very tender spot on the front of the heel bone. Sometimes they pick up other “biomechanical” or leg shape abnormalities too.

In some patients an X-ray may show a “heel spur.” This spur can look dramatic but in fact it’s a bit of a red herring. The Heel Spur arises as a result of the inflammation and is not the cause of it. Many patients who have severe heel pain do not have a heel spur seen on x-ray and many patients who do have a heel spur have no pain in the heel! 

What is the role of steroid injection in carpal tunnel syndrome?

Injection of corticosteroid into the carpal tunnel has been used as a treatment for some years. But what does the published evidence have to say about whether it works or not?

In my own experience, injection of steroid and / or local anaesthetic into the carpal tunnel area is effective in about half of the patients that I see. Some of them gain lasting relief of the carpal tunnel symptoms and others find that the symptoms of tingling in the median nerve skin area return a month or two after the injection.

Recent Studies on Steroid Injection for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Two small but quite good quality studies have been published recently. These are what is known as randomised controlled studies and the results of this kind of study are usually (but not always) reliable.

Both studies showed that injection with steroid into the carpal tunnel produced benefit with about a month of the injection. The benefit was sustained in many of the patients.

The studies compared carpal tunnel steroid injection with placebo injection. Placebo injection is when both the doctor and the patient think that an active drug is being injected but when – in truth – only an inert and inactive liquid is in the syringe.

The patients who were given the active drug typically reported an improvement in their symptoms of about 70% – compared with improvement of about 15% in the patients who were given a placebo.

The risks of steroid injection into the carpal tunnel are small but not zero. Some people find the injection to be very painful for two or three days afterwards. There is a small risk that the injected liquid may enter a blood vessel or may be injected into the median nerve itself. This last problem is rare but can potentially be very serious.