Tennis elbow is weird and I’ve got a mild case of it on my right side which is where everything goes wrong with my body.
It started about three weeks ago and while it isn’t getting worse, there seems little chance of it getting better quickly. Unfortunately my pessimism is somewhat well founded.
Tennis elbow, a meaningless title when it comes to the large majority of cases, most often describes an injury to the tendon of the extensor carpi radialis brevis muscle. Because this muscle is involved in so many of our daily activities, it can be hard to give it the rest it needs to heal.
I’m not sure how I tweaked it. But I did and it doesn’t want to go away.
Tennis elbow is a swelling of the tendons of the extensor carpi radialis brevis muscle. This muscle extends and abducts the hand at the wrist. Think of squeezing a sponge—ouch! Zipping up a jacket—ouch! Lifting anything with your palm facing the floor, as in lifting groceries out of the back of a car—ouch!
It is ridiculous how many things you need to remember not to do if you get tennis elbow. You can accomplish most of these actions with palms facing up, which doesn’t mess with the muscle, but it is a training regimen that the brain has very little interest in.
I can go the entire course of the day (a good elbow day) with nothing and then—bam!—one false move and the accursed elbow is unhappy.
The worst of it sleeping, which if you have read the blog before, you know that I might be too obsessed with the quality of my sleep, or lack thereof. Now, every time I roll over in the night, which could be a number of times depending upon the evening, I tweak my elbow and the pain wakes me up. Then I curse and go back to sleep.
This is a double whammy. Every time I wake up I am essentially reinjuring my elbow and since I am woken up, I lose the healing benefits that sleep could bring. Major bummer.
The good thing is that I know it will heal even if the timetable isn’t exactly what I would hope for.