QUESTION: Why do I have arm pain when popping up or grabbing my board's rails?

Hey Beth,

I have a question regarding a surf-related injury. My left arm has developed an odd pain. It starts in my thumb muscle and wrist, and can extend to a spot in the middle of my forearm. Sometimes it continues to the inner part of my elbow. It feels almost like tendon pain.

I think that it is due to some sort of stress from popping up. Repeated stress on the wrist? It can also be painful when I am paddling out and grab the rails to go over an incoming wave.

I can definitely feel it being connected from the wrist and thumb muscle and shooting up the arm.

I've been trying to strengthen my wrist and hand and trying some exercises. The more I surf the worse it seems to get.

Help?

Thanks,
Michael

ANSWER:

Uh-Oh, Michael.

Sounds to me like you have what I have been dealing with for over a year now. Does it hurt when you pick heavy things up with that hand? Extend your thumb? Swelling over the thumb tendon down your arm?? Well, if it is similar to what I have had, I am sorry. Hard telling over the Internet, so you probably want to get it checked out. I will go over what I went through for my healing process.

I want to preface this with what I did wrong. I surfed on it for the entire fall/winter season last year because it was soosososososo good and I could not resist. However, I totally f@$%@% it up by doing so and paid dearly all summer. I inflamed the tendon beyond belief and think that I eventually had some bone shifting going on. SO, I have been doing a ton of acupuncture to reduce the swelling, a bit of body work to re-adjust the bones in my wrist and forearm, and I wore a brace (which I still wear sleeping) to minimize thumb/wrist movement. The cold water KILLS this thing, not to mention all the pushing up and battling with the board during duck dives. Putting on my wetsuit really aggravated it.

I have continued doing yoga throughout this injury which at first bothered it until I started to modify everything. Once I got smart, yoga helped. I did find that my whole left arm was totally messed up and out of alignment from years of overuse as a competitive swimmer. Both my body worker and I believe the tendonitis is a reflection of old scar tissue and lack of range of motion in my shoulder, upper arm, and then down to the lower arm wrist.

SO, in a nut shell... Get a diagnosis, stay out of the water, mobilize it if there is swelling and pain, stretch the whole arm/shoulder area, heat feels good if it is what I had, and get back to me on this. With tendonitis, it only gets worse every time you bug it!

Let me know your thoughts. Again, this is a guess based on what you told me. Mine was OUT OF CONTROL when I finally dealt with it and it has taken almost two months of staying out of the water and rehab to get it close to normal. Even the bone under my thumb was swollen and painful to touch!

Good luck!

Hasta,
Beth

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