Fencer's Elbow

I've been having a touch of tennis elbow over the last couple weeks. Well, tennis or golfer's elbow, not sure--it's aggravated by lifting things and bending the elbow, which is a tennis elbow thing, but I also have some pain when I do finger-specific movements (typing, etc.), which is apparently more common in golfer's elbow... screw it, I have fencer's elbow. So say we all.

I first noticed it after an Altavia practice the day after a fairly vigorous Darach practice about a month ago, and it's sort of come and gone since then. It's gotten significantly worse in the last week, starting last weekend. I'm pretty sure I slept all of Saturday night with both arms fully extended and locked outside the covers, (odd, aren't I?) which probably aggravated it.

On Sunday I went out and bought a forearm strap on Don Eogan's recommendation. It was a little unnerving to put it on and feel an immediate relief from pain that I had previously been unaware of--I didn't realize it had hurt at all until it stopped hurting.

Fencing at Altavia on Monday with the strap on was awesome--I could feel weakness in the arm, but other than one over-extended lunge (that ended with my elbow getting clipped by the edge of my opponent's sword, arg!), I didn't feel any pain or discomfort at all. It wasn't sore at all the next morning, either (another standard symptom of tennis elbow is morning stiffness, which I haven't experienced at all yet). It got more sore as the day went on, and by Tuesday night it was pretty painful, but I went all day on Wednesday without the brace and it really didn't bother me until the end of the workday. Typing and fine finger movements (spinning the iPod wheel, for example) definitely bug me a bit, so I'm tying to avoid them... in my left hand, anyway.

At the moment, I've put myself on an ibuprofen regimen to decrease swelling, am wearing the brace almost all of my waking hours, and icing it in bed every night. I hope with a little rest and coddling it clears up by itself, because my range of motion and activity in my left arm has been badly impacted. Fortunately I'm not entirely left-hand dominant--after a couple of days I've successfully taught myself to eat with my right hand like I did when I was a kid, and as long as I keep the left elbow propped up I can type and things at work with no discomfort.

So, outlook? Well, I've had a lot of people tell me their tennis elbow stories, most of which end in "...and then I had to take two, four, six, fifteen months off! And have surgery! Which was really painful! And then my marriage ended! And my dog died! And I NEVAR FENCED AGAAAAAAAAAAAIN."

I will not be that person. I've decided. Kthxnook?thxbai.

Seriously. I'm just, just barely feeling like I'm starting to improve, damn it, and I'm not going to take some lame months off to lick my damn elbow tendon and feel sorry for myself (because, I assure you, I will feel sorry for myself, and it will be unbecoming). The very idea puts me in a cheerfully destructive frame of mind.

That being said, I'm not going to be a moron about it, either. I'll take my Advil and rest my arm and wear my brace and rest my arm and ice it every night and rest my arm and stop typing so much left-handed and rest my arm. I'll only fence once a week, I can do that. I'll stop using my left arm entirely six days and twenty-three hours a week, but I'm not going to give up my one hour of fencing unless I absolutely have to.

I may light that incense regardless.

Baby Got Back (Problems)

So, it's been awhile since I've posted, in large part because it's been awhile since I fenced. :(

After a couple weeks of practice being rained out or me incorrectly assuming it would be rained out, and therefore not going, my back went out in a major way the Sunday of Collegium, which resulted in me taking two weeks off practice.

I don't have a chronically bad back, per se, but I do have chronic low-grade chiropractic problems and hypermobile joints. I inherited them from my mother (although hers seem to have gotten a lot better in the last 10 years, and I'm hoping I'll experience similar recovery later in life). These have caused various problems over the years--I dislocated something in my thigh when I was 10 or 12 and tripped on the stairs (it can't have been the whole thing, because I put it back in myself, but wow, it was painful), tore cartilage in my ribcage on a backpacking trip in high school because a rib went out of alignment while I was wearing a big heavy pack, and I'm fairly sure they're why I tore the ligaments in the arch of my right foot last winter.

One of the nice things about having hypermobile joints is that once they go out, they're fairly easy to put back in by myself, and provided I get enough exercise and keep up a certain baseline of muscle mass, I don't suffer from major chiropractic injuries or displacements very often. One of the bad things about having hypermobile joints is that when they go out badly, they tend to go out again after they've been fixed, especially once they've been out for awhile already and all the wrong muscles are swollen. In those cases, swelling essentially makes the path of least resistance the "out" position the joint was in earlier.

All of this foolishness can be almost completely overcome by a few simple luxuries--Advil and/or Tiger Balm to relax muscles when necessary, lots of stretching and some light weight-bearing exercise (like, say, fencing), one of those orthopedic neck pillows (not memory foam--those eventually compress under the weight of my -enormous- head and give no more support than any regular pillow), fish oil supplements, and so on. I don't deserve any particular sympathy or comfort here, because I know how to take care of myself and 95 percent of my joint issues can be handled non-medically and with regular self-care. There are people out there with real medical issues that they can't heal themselves--they deserve sympathy and support. The point of this post is to illustrate, not to host a pity party. :)

Anyway, my back went out on Sunday morning, I got it fixed Monday afternoon, and skipped practice Wednesday. I was experiencing warm pain, weakness, tingling, and extremely limited range of motion until the Sunday after, so I decided to skip practice again the Wednesday following, just to be safe.

This also meant skipping a couple weeks of my wrist and arm strengthening exercises. The offending vertebra was in the center of my upper back (somewhere in the T-1 to T-3 region), so doing any exercises that involved extending my arms straight forward was extremely painful and resulted in spasms (I was driving with my left hand exclusively for awhile, because my right side hurt more than my left).

This was a really frustrating couple of weeks. I'd honestly thought joint flare-ups this bad were a thing of the past. The fact that I could still be incapacitated by back pain even though I was getting enough exercise and taking good enough care of myself (I thought!) really tanked my enthusiasm and self-esteem for a couple days there. I consider myself both lazy and self-indulgent, so the fact that I could throw my back out just sitting in the car dealt a huge blow to what was never a great body image or opinion of my own athleticism to begin with.

So, when I complain about my back or neck hurting, that's why--I have chronic chiropractic problems, and they're why I've been off the horse for the last few weeks. Onward and upward!