A Country Doctor Gets Epicondylitis

I have never in my career seen tennis elbow in a tennis player. The proper name for this condition is lateral epicondylitis. There is also medial epicondylitis, nicknamed golfer’s elbow, and I haven’t seen that in a golfer either.

Still, it helps to have a folksy name for medical conditions when those names help people understand what it is or how it is caused.

In my case, I had it once before after a home improvement project. This time I’m pretty sure it was the combination of two thongs: First stall cleaning, putting manure, wet hay and shavings in the manure bucket with the pitchfork handle with my right hand and my left hand further down, making a backhand-like movement just like a tennis player. Second, I’ve been snow blowing. My Toro drives forward by itself but it doesn’t have a way to steer it except by holding on to the handle bars and making a twisting motion with my arms, pronation with one elbow and supination with the other, flirting with tennis elbow and golfer’s elbow on opposite arms.

Today, I also noticed for the first time that I have a swollen olecranon bursa on my left elbow, also sometimes called Popeye’s elbow or student’s elbow, supposedly caused by putting your flexed elbow on a desk or table too much. I didn’t think I did but I have it, a mild case where the fluid is not under pressure. No need for intervention. Same thing for my epicondylitis, take it a little easy for a while. I don’t dare to take ibuprofen with my acid reflux condition. Besides, I just don’t like to take pills…

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Osler said “Listen to your patient, he is telling you the diagnosis”. Duvefelt says “Listen to your patient, he is telling you what kind of doctor he needs you to be”.

 

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