Pain when bending and straightening elbow: Three causes

Your elbows do a lot more work on a daily basis than you might think. Your elbow moves every time you bring your morning coffee to your mouth. Turning the steering wheel of your car would be impossible without it. It even allows you to straighten your arm to reach objects above your head. 

All these normal daily tasks can become much harder to do if you have pain when bending and straightening your elbow. Physical therapy can help treat many causes of elbow pain. However, your treatment plan will be most effective if the root cause of your pain is identified first.

Three causes of pain when straightening and bending the elbow

Various issues can cause pain when your elbow is bent or straightened. Repetitive movements can cause injuries that lead to this symptom, and impacts from sports or car accidents could lead to painful elbow injuries. However, there are three specific issues that often cause people to seek physical therapy for elbow pain. These issues are: 

  1. Golfer’s elbow — This issue is a repetitive motion injury. It occurs when the tendons connecting the forearm muscles to the inside of the elbow become inflamed. This condition isn’t limited to golfers; weightlifters, pitchers and anyone doing forceful elbow movements can develop this injury. 
  1. Bursitis — A bursa is a fluid-filled sac in the joint that provides cushioning between soft tissue and bones. The bony point of your elbow has a bursa called the olecranon bursa. Impacts to the point of the elbow or long periods of leaning on it can irritate the olecranon bursa. Infections can also cause this bursa to become inflamed. 
  1. Nerve irritation — There are several nerves that run through tunnels in the elbow tissue: One of these is the cubital nerve and another is the radial nerve. These tunnels are called the cubital and radial tunnels. Elbow impacts or repetitive movements can cause inflammation in these tunnels, which can irritate the nerves running through them. 

Come to SSOR for help with pain when bending and straightening your elbow

Do you want to find effective treatment for the pain you have when bending and straightening your elbow? SSOR has a physical therapy team that can help. Our team can assess your elbow using a complimentary screening, and this assessment can help us learn the cause of your pain. Using this information, we can build you a personalized therapy plan. This plan will include multiple beneficial therapy methods, and your plan may use therapy methods such as: 

 

Contact us today for more information about elbow pain treatment or to schedule your complimentary screening.