Another Mountain to Climb

For a while, I was incorporating riding my mountain bike around in the mornings as part of my exercise routine, but after one trip I was starting to develop a pain in my left elbow. It would come and go, but it wasn’t a debilitating type of pain so I just let it be. I would only really notice the pain when I was walking in the mornings. After a while I starting wearing a Copper Fit sleeve on my elbow, and that was working well enough to leave things alone.

However, after I rearranged my workshop the most recent time in July 2020, I noticed that my elbow pain had returned a bit stronger than before. Along with the elbow, my lower back was killing me as well. I must have tweaked my back when I was moving something in the garage. I was out of commission for a few days. My back would be hurting the most when I was simply sitting down. I was using a heating pad quite a bit over those few days, and it was providing relief to my back, but it also seemed to be helping my elbow as well (an odd coincidence).

I finally contacted my primary doctor and she referred me to an orthopedist for further evaluation. The doctor to whom she referred me was actually the same doctor that performed the surgery on my finger the previous year. I contacted the doctor’s office to schedule an appointment, but the orthopedist was booked for a couple of months. I chose to go with one of his colleagues instead, and I was set for the following week.

I was given an x-ray of my left elbow prior to seeing the doctor. After I explained everything that lead up to my injury, the doctor didn’t see any correlation between my back and my elbow (just coincidence). It turned out that I basically had golfer/baseball elbow or medial epicondylitis. The repetitive jarring of bumps in the road while riding the bike must have been the catalyst for the injury. He prescribed me some simple exercises to do in order to strengthen the muscles in my arm. No follow-up would be necessary, unless there was some kind of complication. It’s been a couple of months since the doctor’s visit, and I have yet to do any of the exercises for my arm. I’ve been careful with how I move my arm, and it’s gotten better. However, I think I might start trying the exercises just to see how much of a difference it makes (I’m stubborn).