Not arthritis, but the same elbow

[Jim Mahan]

Medical, home DIY surgical question.

Many months ago, I whacked my left elbow on something hard and immovable and with a serious edge, in my shop as I was gettin’ ‘er done. Maybe the side of the cast iron tablesaw, I don’t recall. I noticed. It hurt, it bled. It peeled a bit of the skin back, but just a minor thing and I put the flap of skin back in place and a bandaid on it, and it healed as it should. So I thought. It was easy to forget about, not especially painful. Bandaid came off when it shoulda, and I left the scab alone pretty much.

The problem came when the scab came off and the wound, the scar, evolved into a bump of thick skin sorta like a wart or a callous. The actual problem is that somewhen in that process it seems like, feels like, some part of a nerve grew back wrong and it seems like it’s just, well, raw. The thing is this wart-like affair that feels like a fresh burn, or like something like needle is stuck in it. There is no foreign object embedded. Every time I put any pressure on it, like layng on my side and propping my head up on my hand, my elbow rests on the hard bony part and the little sharp annoying pain shows up. Rest my elbow on the upholstered arm of my desk chair, same thing. If I feel it with my fingers or press on it, there’s the pain.

The skin is healed over and looks like nothing but a thick bump, like a wart. Now it’s been like this for months. The skin is tough enough I can’t pick it. There’s no edge, just the damn bump and the pain.

So I’m thinking I need to ‘re-wound’ it, and have the skin go through the natural healing process again. As if maybe when the injury first happened and I laid the small flap of torn skin back in place, it wasn’t in the right position, the nerves that separated in the original injury were out of position when the scab and the scarring took place, and so the pain is caused by a ‘loose end.’ So if I carefully slice the bump off with a straight razor, it’ll take the cue when making the new skin, and line the new nerve endings back up correctly automatcally.

Or just go see the doc?

[hawkeye54]

Jim, I had something like that happen in my right elbow, back in 2017 - it was a case where the muscle / tendon / ligament was crushing the nerve which runs from the shoulder to the hand . Basically, I lost the ability to grasp things and make a tight fist. I was building houses with Habitat at the time, and lost the ability to hold a hammer or use a can of spray paint. I had some neurological testing done, and wound up having surgery to ease the compression on the nerve. All OK now. To net it out, you may want to have a chat with your doctor before you freelance a fix. Hope it all works out,



Rick

[Canoeyawl]

An amputation should cure it

[Nicholas Carey]

Bone chip floating about?

I'd have the medics take a look.

[skuthorp]

I am fortunate in that my drinking arm is unaffected……………………..

[John Smith]

Pain is no fun. I'd suggest professional help if you trust your doc.

I had a pain down the center of my big toe. Foot doctor suggested it was gout.

I've suffered from gout and assured him this was not that. By coincidence, before my next appointment with him, HE had a gout attack. Now he knew what I meant.

We never did figure out what caused the sharp pain that went down the center of my toe from time to time, but we did come to realize that as long as it had a little room to swell, it didn't last long. NO SOCKS. If the foot is in a sock and the pain comes, when the toe begins to swell, but fights the sock, it gets worse and worse. No sock it comes, and in 5 minutes or so leaves.

[bluedog225]

Sounds like a hypertrophic scar. But who knows. I’d have it checked out by a dermatologist. If its a scar, it will take care of itself. And there are some things they can do if it really bothers you.

[wizbang 13]

I would put a poultice of castor oil and comfrey with a dash of hot red pepper.
A castor oil poultice is a messy thing,you'd need to change it once or twice a day. Elbow is an easy spot.
Keep it up for a month .
Castor oil kept on a wound will slow the heal , there will never be a scab, just daily "goo" in the bandage, but will result in minimal scarring and no infection,(unless yer body is toxic from junk food).
Some junk that should have come out or been absorbed may still be where it ain't s'possed to be.
of course this is just hippie chit I've learned over 50 years...not real medicine.