Ever since we moved, back in July, my arm has been bothering me; or rather, more specifically, my elbow. At first I chalked it up to just being overworked during that crazy week of hauling furniture and boxes around and laying laminate flooring (the week that consequently stretched into a month – or was it two – but let’s not go there, shall we?), and I assumed that eventually it would go away on its own. But as the weeks progressed and the elbow stubbornly refused to heal, and I found myself unable to even pick up a gallon of milk with my right hand without wincing in pain I finally decided that gee, maybe I ought to have it looked at.
So this afternoon I headed off to Davis to see my doctor, and after giving him a brief explanation of my problem and what I assumed had caused it, he grinned, took my hand, bent it down, and then said ‘push your hand up’, and the instant I even *thought* about trying to bend that wrist, holy crap the pain. Because it turns out that that one particular muscle in the elbow that I have oh-so-cleverly managed to injure is sort of the meeting place for where all the muscles in the wrist come together. And basically, through the combination of hefting boxes and laying laminate flooring, both of which required me to put a lot more stress on my wrists than my body is used to, I managed to give myself tennis elbow. Yay me.
The problem with muscle injuries is that you really just need to let them sit unused for long periods of time to encourage them to heal, but since I am right handed, and this is my right elbow, and also my life requires a lot of repetitive wrist movements (I work on a computer, I knit), this thing just never got a chance to heal. So the doctor prescribed me large quantities of ibuprofin and also a brace that I am to wear on my arm. The brace is an interesting little creation, because basically it puts pressure on the muscle right below the elbow, and because it’s putting pressure there (as he explained it, and bear in mind I am *not* a doctor so I may not have the whole thing straight), it tricks the body into thinking that the muscle stops at the pressure point and not at the elbow, and when I do things with my right wrist, it will use the lower part of the muscle and leave the injured part (at the elbow) alone to heal in peace and quiet.
Of course, he also mentioned that I should try to learn how to mouse left handed, and then switch back and forth so I’m not putting all the strain on just one arm (this should be interesting, for the laugh potential if nothing else) and oh yeah. I am to avoid a lot of repetitive wrist movement (see above for why I might have given a faint snicker of disbelief at *that* part of the prescription), and oh by the way this could still take up to six months to heal.
Oh well. I will be good and follow all his orders (as much as I can) because I have already been reading stories from people who’ve had this and who note that it might never go entirely away and I would really like to one day be able to pull a mixing bowl out of the cupboard with my right hand again without wincing. And in the meantime, I will just add this to the slowly growing list of ways in which I have managed to injure myself in weird ways – the most notable being wrenching my back bending over to pick up a three pound kitten, breaking my foot walking barefoot down a carpeted hall, and now, contracting tennis elbow from laying laminate flooring. My talent, it really does know no bounds.
Posted for NaBloPoMo.