Forearm pain (with pics)

[97viper]

I've had and have golfer's elbow in both elbows but have never had pain in my forearm until recently. I believe this stemmed from 2 incidents about 5 months ago. The first incident was I carried 2k lbs in dumbbells and 2k in plates to my basement. By the time I was done I had almost no grip and my forearms were shot. Two weeks later I laid sod and my forearms cramped up which I've never had happen. Shortly after that when I worked out my forearms would look much bigger than they ever had previously. They were also tight. Over the last few months they were getting painful to where I could feel it when I picked my baby up out of the crib. Two weeks ago I had to stop doing curls because of the pain. Last week I was doing pull ups and when I switched to underhand grip pull ups the pain was unbearable so I went to my orthopedic doctor.

The doctor said to take anti inflammatory meds for 2 weeks and rest for 3-4 weeks. It has been one week with no noticeable difference. Last night I was trying to pinpoint the muscle and I noticed when I put my arm up and rotate my hand forward away from my body that there is an area next to my elbow that is very swollen. Nothing is really noticeable at any other angle and my doctor didn't see it at this angle. Since she didn't see it at this angle and it is extremely swollen I wanted to post here to get some opinions.

Has anyone had this type of injury or know if rest alone is going to heal it? Would TB500 be somethign I should use or is something else recommended?

The area inside the circle is where there was pain after doing the pull ups


Here is what it looks like with my hands rotated away from my body


Here is a better view of the swelling. This is what it looks like all day

[Marsoc]

Maybe tendinitis. I got that in my right top part of my forearm. Some jack ass kept having me shovel a drive way while he tracked mud on it. Arm swelled up and now sometimes. Years later it doesn't effect me other then if I'm for example using a weed whacked. With little movements of my finger pulling the trigger. It will exhaust.
It cause me to re think and I started to practice being ambidextrous to spare my right arm at times

[97viper]

It's been about a month with no noticeable improvement. It's painful in almost everything I do including pick up my 20 lb kid. I started tb500 last week at 5mg/week. I'll try to update the thread with results on the tb500.

[Obs]

Probably disconnected something. Go to a doctor.

[97viper]

started week 3 of tb500 today. no improvement yet.

[600@50]

Sounds like a severe muscle strain. Possibly torn muscle fibers. Think along the same lines as tearing a pec muscle while benching. It's not going to heal overnight or even in a month. Treat your injury the same way. Give it rest. Alternate ice and heat several times throughout the day to promote circulation. Light stretching can help to avoid adhesions while healing. Ibuprofen will help with pain and swelling. This will take some time to heal up, maybe a couple of months depending on how bad it's injured. Take it slow and go see a doctor if it doesn't get better. Best of luck man.

[97viper]

^Thanks for the advice 600. I'm guessing severe muscle strain also. It's coming up on 2 months since I had to lay off of it and today I just started my 5th week of tb500 with very little, if any, improvement. I plan on completing 6 weeks of tb500 and if not seeing any improvement then going back to the dr.

[TRA]

^Thanks for the advice 600. I'm guessing severe muscle strain also. It's coming up on 2 months since I had to lay off of it and today I just started my 5th week of tb500 with very little, if any, improvement. I plan on completing 6 weeks of tb500 and if not seeing any improvement then going back to the dr.

You could have partially torn a muscle and have a hematoma, etc. I would find an ortho doc that uses musculoskeletal ultrasound or get an MRI on that bad boy sooner rather than later. I started TB500 quite some time ago and am underimpressed with it so far...think I am only 3 wks in but not much help. You can continue the TB500 but you want to see what the issue is to avoid problems with chronicity, imho.

[jwh7699]

Ice it, roll a tennis ball over the area to loosen up the fascia. Get an X-Ray.

I have been taking TB500 for 6 weeks for Right Bicep Joint Tendinitis. I've seen a 70% improvement to far.

Some say it takes a while to notice a difference with TB500, sometimes not until getting into the maintenance phase.

[97viper]

I ended up getting a MRI. Results showed everything was intact. The report says there is a "small partial thickness tear at the origin of the common flexor tendon at the medial epicondyle". So it's medial epicondylitis or "golfer's elbow". Apparently the swollen part is muscle and is normal, even though it doesn't look normal. I had a cortizone shot last week and it has worked wonders with pain.

[97viper]

Cortisone shot wore off about 2 weeks ago. Pain is worse now then before the shot. I'm going to schedule another doctors appointment. It's been 5 months since the pain got really bad and there has been no improvement. I couldn't curl 10 lbs without pain.

[jamal123]

Cortisone shot wore off about 2 weeks ago. Pain is worse now then before the shot. I'm going to schedule another doctors appointment. It's been 5 months since the pain got really bad and there has been no improvement. I couldn't curl 10 lbs without pain.

kinda sounds like my issue man it really sux ive been resting it for almost a year now no improvement.... physio,tb500,mri came saying nothing really wrong when something clearly is... its so fraustrating man

[Richard Cabeza]

Be careful with those diagnosis, if you still think something is wrong get a second opinion... 2 years ago i went to the hospital because i had crazy pain in my shoulder, chest, and bicep... was told it was just a strained muscle in my chest, i know what a muscle strain feels like, went to another doctor, found out i had a torn labrum, mri showed a 40% tear ... after surgery he told me it was actually a 80% tear and they couldn't see how bad it was on the mri because a massive amount of scar tissue was blocking it, apparently this injury was like 16 years old and i basically re-tore it even worse .... fast forward 5 months later mri was only on my shoulder, so they missed the torn pec and partial bicep tear, now i have a hard ass lump in my chest and a lagging ass bicep lol ....point is always get a second opinion if you feel like it might be more, be diligent and share your concerns

[TRA]

^^^^ This (referencing last reply by Richard Cabeza). I had a jacked up knee that had only a huge dissecting baker cyst on MRI. Had surgery 8 wks or so ago and it was much worse than MRI showed - huge tears in medial meniscus and lateral meniscus, grade 4 chondramalacia patella, and large area of exposed bone on the medial femur, all of which were missed by MRI. I would see a PM&R doc if you haven't already.