What's wrong with my elbow pain

Elbow pain may be caused by arthritis, excessive fatigue, or damage to the joint cartilage. You must pay more attention to rest, exercise appropriately, try not to overwork, and keep warm. If you need to take medication, it is best to consult a doctor first and use it under the doctor's guidance. Never take medication blindly, otherwise it may affect your condition.

Why does my elbow hurt?

1. Rheumatoid arthritis: It is an acute or chronic connective tissue disease that can cause pain in multiple joints such as the knees, ankles, shoulders, and elbows. The lesions are locally red, swollen, burning, and painful. Some patients also have several joints affected at the same time. Atypical patients only have joint pain but no other inflammatory manifestations. Acute inflammation generally subsides in 2-4 weeks without leaving sequelae, but it often recurs.

2. Osteoarthritis: A common orthopedic disease that can cause pain and swelling in multiple joints. The distal and proximal interphalangeal joints of the hands, knees, elbows, shoulders, and spinal joints are most likely to be affected, while the wrist and ankle joints are less likely to be affected. As the disease progresses, joint contracture, instability, pain at rest, and increased pain when bearing weight may occur. Dysfunction may occur due to mechanical locking caused by poor joint surface fit, muscle spasm and contraction, joint capsule contraction, and bone spurs.

3. Due to long-term strain, some tendons and soft tissues attached to the elbow joint may suffer partial fiber tearing or damage, or friction may cause periosteal trauma, leading to periostitis, which is mainly manifested in pain on the outside of the elbow joint, radiating to the outside of the forearm, weakness in gripping objects, and local pain aggravated when tightening screws or squeezing towels. The affected area is somewhat swollen, bone hyperplasia can be felt, and tenderness is obvious.

What causes arm pain?

1. There are many causes of arm pain, most of which can be traced back to one thing - muscle fatigue. If the pain is severe on the first day and better the next day, then there is nothing wrong with it, but if the pain comes back for no clear reason, then it could be arthritis.

2. If the pain gradually worsens, you may have a fracture in your forearm or upper arm. You might think that a broken bone would be easy to feel, but people often break a bone without realizing it, for example, from a bump or fall, until you suddenly feel pain from increased activity or pressure on the injured area.

3. There is a common disease that causes arm pain - tennis elbow, which is a kind of "tendinitis", an inflammation of the tendon tissue around the elbow joint (the same condition can also occur in the knee joint, and is generally more likely to occur in housewives and people who do housework).

Arm pain caused by bursitis is easier to identify because the elbow symptoms caused by bursitis include warmth, tenderness (painful to the touch), and painful swelling of the elbow. When suffering from tennis elbow, although the elbow becomes useless, there are no such symptoms.

4. Shoulder and arm muscle spasms are often caused by local cold, long-term work with the head down, long-term computer operation, incorrect sitting posture, etc. Because of maintaining a certain posture for a long time, the neck muscles and joints are always in a tense state, which can easily cause symptoms of shoulder and arm pain.

5. During the acute stage of periarthritis of the shoulder, symptoms of shoulder and arm pain may occur, which are often lighter during the day and heavier at night. However, it is often accompanied by limited shoulder joint movement.