Messed up my elbow?
 

Yeah probably not the place to ask..but...

Just yesterday I took a fairly nasty tumble from my mountain bike on a paved surface...while going pretty damn fast. (my jacket has burn marks..). I flew of the left side of my bike, landed on my side and tumbled. (No before anyone asks, I was wearing NO saftey equipment, I have a ton of it at home and wear it when REALLY mountian biking, this was more of a fun workout with friends)

The impact was all on my left side, I managed to bruise my hip and take off quite a bit of skin from my left hand.(Nothing some medical glue can't help)

None of these bug me, my elbow is really annoying me though. I have lost the ability to fully flex it nor am I able to hold anything heavier than a coke can in my hand without discomfort.(I can't even bring the damn can up to my face to drink from it). I literally had trouble putting my pants on this morning.

There is no visible swelling - there was some yesterday but I put ice on it for most of the day and it seems to have gone away.

So in other words all I have is rather painful loss of motion.

Is this something I should see the doctor about or will it go away? At 21 I've only broken a bone once and that was a finger during soccer (got kicked in it). I am worried about possible fractures etc. (It was a very nasty fall..)

Is this something that I should be running to my doctor about? Usually I heal very fast...

Any help will be greatly appreciated

I think this injury, like most serious medical problems, will go away if given the proper 2 - 10 years of ignoring the pain and refusing to see the doctor.

Go to the ER, wait 5 hours, they'll see ya for 5 minutes, you go home with some pain killers. 5 days later you'll get a bill for 5,000 dollars.


Bullshit ain't it!?

Or you could go see your physician. It doesn't sound broken. In my extensive experience (5 times) with broken arms, I would think you would have already seen the doctor, driven there by the pain.

But it might be a good idea to get it looked at. I would.

Do you have insurance?

Well I got insurance so the $10 copay isn't such a big deal, the fact that I'll have to miss work is.

mwbEEf, I find your posting odd. Are you implying that I should go see a doctor about every injury I've had?

That'd kinda take long, I've fallen off my bike countless times, and healed just fine countless times.

I'm just not sure if it's a bone injury or just some sore tissue that's causing the loss of movment.

If you miss work while you have an injury and they don't pay you.... its called worker's comp.

He's talking about a day, not a year, r9.

Don't think I get that. Unless I get injured at work. I hardly consider mountain biking a work related injury.

No. He's stated pretty clearly that you shouldn't.

Sorry, he didn't say.
One day won't kill you FNF!

I would just make an appt w/ an orthopaedic surgeon for an exam and xray. I dislocated my shoulder in '89 and didn't get any medical attention and have had shoulder problems ever since.

Bottom line: Why NOT go to the doctor. You can make up the missed work time if its that critical.

One day = Money. I like money.

I got no sick days...nothing of that sort.

Nah, I am in agreement with you that would take up far too much time. I'd probably give it a week or so, and if the Coke can is still pretty much where the threshold of pain lies, I'd head in to the doctor's.

One of the dangers of untreated injuries to joints is the greater liability you'll have to future complications from arthritis. Take it from someone who knows...get it looked at. In the meantime, take 600-800 mg of ibuprofen three times per day, ice it on a semi-regular schedule, and work it through a simple range of motion.

If the pain isn't greatly diminished by the ibuprofen regimen, you definitely need to get it looked at. You could have a bone chip, tendon brusing, an outright fracture. There's no limit to damage that can be done to a joint. They're complex machines and replacement parts are unreasonably expensive.

Well I made an appointment for 10am tomorow with my GP...

Thanks for the info.

It's certainly odd that I ask a bunch of complete strangers what to do about my elbow...I suppose thats the whole global village thing and the fact that unbiased opinion only comes from indifferent strangers. My gf or my mom would rush me to ER if I told them that I couldn't lift a coke can to my mouth with my left hand. But then they'd also rush me to ER if I told them that my head hurts like if it's got a 10' nail in it...which is the general state after work.

Strangely enough, most of us actually seem to care about most of the rest of us on some level. This is increased greatly when one of us does some sort of good deed for another!

Hope it isn't serious, FNF.

Elspode, the thing about online relationships is that generaly they're more 'balanced'. While people do care about each other they do not do so in an excessive or even obsessive fashion. (Thats not to say that there are excessive or even obsessive online relationships...there are..I played EQ. I know)

The result is a fairly clear headed responce without the layers of "over protective care". As in, my mother would tackle me with an antibiotic bandaid and neosporin for even the smallest cut that really needed no attention.

Had she seen my left hand, she'd have soaked it in antibiotics then bandaged it for extra protection. Safe? Sure. Excessive? Yes. Some medical glue, liquid bandage, whatever you call it, took care of it. (Of course first I had to pull the cuts open and get all dirt out of them...that wasn't fun. Oh and do GET some medical glue if you don't have any. It will cut down your healing time 100 fold, yes it's expensive)

Hmm I kinda lost what I was trying to say...so let see. Medical Glue=Good. Online Relationships = Mostly Balanced RL Relationships = Too much pampering.

Any time you have loss of motion is generally a sign to at least have an X-Ray taken. Particularly if there is a lot of pain - may be some busted or damaged tendons. And then once you know, you can judge future injuries against that one, though internal damage is tough to tell from exterior prodding (unless you're a doctor).

Of course if it just hurts to move something, it's probably just swelling and nothing extremely serious. That's diff from range of motion. I have some damage in my left ankle from not getting it checked out after spraining it ... of course now it's fully damage from breaking it 3 years ago, but still.

Well I can't unbend it more than ~25 degrees nor bend it over ~95 degrees assuming that my arm is laid horizontaly on the table.

I think thats about the same range of motion I had yesterday. Oddly enough I had NO problems moving my hand initialy but it developed within 2 hours.

fnf, i'm not a nurse or anything but i would think your lack of mobility may be due to swelling...seeing as how you could move it initially. best to get it checked, though.

Adrenaline and endorphins keep the blood moving faster and the swelling down, which is why you would be okay for a few hours (and not feel any pain). Notice when you start icing it really starts to swell.

I think in this case, you should cut your arm off at the elbow, and look inside to see what the problem is. If it looks ok, just put it back on....if it doesn't , take it to the doctor and see what he can do with it....if the doctor has a drive though window, you won't even have to miss any work.

hope that helps....i know you've already gotten a lot of good advice, but i didn't think any of it was very funny. remember, laughter is the BEST medicine...i know, i saw it in reader's digest.

I'd just look for one of those voodoo folks in the Citypaper...they'll fix you right up, and maybe even give you a free curse.

(Going to the doctor: good choice)

A similar fall for me a number of years ago resulted in a greenstick fracture of my fibia/humerus? I just had to wear a sling for a while. It healed up just fine. It did exhibit some swelling, though.

humerus: upper arm bone
ulna and radius: lower arm bones
femur: upper leg bone
tibia and fibula (erroneously called the fibia at times): lower leg bones

OK, syc, can we get acetabulum, clavicle, and coccyx defined too?

When I smacked my forearm skating, it seemed to heal, then got incredibly painful and swelled up again about two weeks after the original injury (no re-injury involved). Then it healed back up fine. Being stubborn, I didn't see a doctor so I don't know if it was fractured or what.

Anatomy was a looong time ago. From my corrected pick 'o bones, that would be either my radius or my ulna. I only remember tibia from the Python sketch. "Fractured tibia, Sargent..." Yeah. Would have looked funny wearing the sling on my leg.

Patrick is right on the money here. I snapped a finger pretty good mountain biking and went the "rub some dirt on it" route. After going untreated for a good long time, it went arthritic on me but seems to be responding to glucosamine

Just to add a "finishing" touch to this thread.

I just got a call from my doctor and I had/have a hairline fracture in my elbow. He wasn't specific in which part of the elbow and I didn't much care.

It's nothing serious and there is no special treatment for it. The only advice of the doctor was to go easy on it for the next few weeks.

In the end I might as well not have gone to the doctor..still I suppose it did something to ease my mind.

Thanks for the advice everyone.