Cannot straighten right elbow, no injury

by james
(Adelaide Australia)

Hello

About 5 years ago when i was 17, close to 18 my right elbow/arm started to stiffen up over the period of about a year eventually completely limiting my movement and giving me a locked sensation, I had never injured my elbow at all and the only relating injury were mild problems that i had with my rotator cuff when i was 15/16.

At the time i was playing a lot of rugby and my arm would be quiet sore and weak after training and games.

I would say that i have only ever experience mild pain from it and the pain was definitely a lot more present in the first year or two of the stiffening.

I went to see a physio who referred me to a doctor, the doctor referred me to an elbow specialist who asked that i have xrays and an MRI, neither showed any cause or reason for the locking of my elbow.

I had cortizone injections which provided no aid either.

At that time myself and family was going through quite an emotionally volatile period and myself not being in the correct emotional state gave up and almost accepted that my elbow would be bent as no doctor seemed to be able to diagnose or help me.

It has never really stopped me from doing the things that i love too much or taken away from my overall strength significantly but i definitely feel as thought it does not allow me to reach my full potential at all.

Last year i was living in Whistler and snowboarding quite a lot and noticed that my shoulder had started to come into the equation and was starting to pull forwards. This i would not accept and so begun the whole process once again.

This time however I approached the scenario with a much more holistic approach, trying acupuncture and also electro magnetic therapy, these both helped my shoulder to start returning to a more stable position, I also took up yoga at this time to help stretch and strengthen my body.

Recently I have started taking Magnesium to help the process as well as having regular baths with epsom salts. Personally now i believe that the cause of the situation was emotional to begin with as it all started a few weeks after my Dad left to travel around Australia & for many years I did not see him or talk much at all.

I can definitely say that It has started to improve from the effort I have been putting in as far as feeling looser and stronger but my elbow is still very much so locked and i would really love to be able to straighten it out as soon as i can.

Any help or advice on the matter would be absolutely amazing :)

Thank you!



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Joshua Answers:

Hello James.

Well, it sounds like you're dealing with a 'tightening' dynamic.

Meaning, muscle get tight and stay tight. And when that happens, connective tissue shrinkwraps down.

You may not have Tendonitis per se, but you definitely have the factors that make up tendonitis (and most all soft tissue pain problems), meaning:

- muscle and connective tissue tightness
- chronic inflammation process
- nutritional insufficiency

What Is Tendonitis?

Probably in your scenario, it's a lot nutritional.

MAYBE you have some past shoulder/elbow/neck injury that is contributing. Even birth trauma can eventually result in various pain/problem farther down the line.

But let's go with this theory, based on these two facts:

1. To deal with stress of any kind (mental, physical, emotional), the body eats up magnesium.

2. When the body doesn't have enough magnesium, muscle get tight and literally can't relax.

See: Magnesium For Tendonitis


So a decent theory to explain your scenario is that the emotional stress of your father leaving, ate up necessessary nutrition that your body was already short on, and for whatever reason, because humans are funny that way, your symptoms are showing up in your arm.

Again, probably you have something going on in that shoulder/elbow that is helping your body present symptoms in the way they are. (But again, humans are funny, and pain/problem can show up in a wide variety of ways.)

Personally, were I you, I would get the nutrition side of things covered and see what happens. And then, or, as you do that you might as well, deal with the physical side of things.

I suggest that you get the Reversing Shoulder Tendonitis program because:

A. From what you said my sense is that helping the shoulder will help the elbow and

B. You can use what you learn there to work on the elbow area.


Having said that, you could get the Tennis Elbow Treatment That Works (that deals with forearm and elbow and some above the elbow) and go the other direction.


Makes sense?

Feel free to ask more questions (and read the pages/links below).




See Related: Help Identifying Inner Elbow Pain Can't Straighten Arm

See Related: Severe And Debilitating Pain In Left Elbow DOctors No Help

See Related: After Falling Hard On My Straight Arm I Can't Straighten The Elbow


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