Sore spot on arm causing extreme issues.

[Ambitious6831]

Thank you for reading this in advance.

Please look at this image of my arm:

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This specific spot (marked green) is very sore when I massage it. This has prevented me from typing, writing and any other finger movements for over 2 years because it gets painful very quickly when I move my fingers, the pain feels like a chemical burn. I have the same condition in both arms.

For the first year I was diagnosed with TE (note the pain is NOT on the boney corner and never was). After execerises and rest nothing was achieved.

In the second year radial tunnel syndrome was suggested, 2 months ago I had surgery to release the nerves. The same sore painful spot is still there, still clear as ever, still is triggered by finger movements.

I think I got the condition from excessive typing. The pain triggers very quickly and usually takes around a week to go away (until I trigger it again).

Does anyone have any ideas? I'm a 24 year old male and this has ripped my life to pieces but I'm not after sympathy, I just want to heal. Thank you very much for any advice you can give.

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[Emanuele]

Did you do any investigation for that? Like ultrasounds? (If not would be the case to have one, ultrasound are quite cheap and are perfect to diagnose any problem in such superficial structure)
Did you try to ice it and gently stretch your extensor compartment?
which kind of exercise did you use to do?
And how come did you have this operation? Did you have pins and needle on the back of your forearm or back of your hand?
Is that the only point where you feel pain or have you got any other associated problem?
A part from typing can you think to anything else that make the pain worse?

Sounds like an overuse type injury on your extensors muscles of the forearm.

All the best

[Ambitious6831]

Hi Emanuele, thanks for your reply.

I havn't had anything like an ultrasound yet, I am trying to get my doctor to arrange one for me. Ice never benefitted me much except for temporary pain relief. I used to stretch a lot where you hold your arm out and pull back on your lowered hand. I tried gentle forearm weight lifting exercises which quickly caused pain, and the 'Tyler Twist' with a flex bar, which also caused pain.

It's very sensitive and I don't see how any exercises would get rid of this sore spot, I need to understand what is causing the soreness. I had an operation because the symptons were closer to Radial Tunnel Syndrome than tennis elbow, apparently the radial nerves passes through that point and they found some compression on this nerve in my right arm but very little in the left (which doesn't make sense as the pain was always the same in both arms, although not at the same time).

That spot is the sore spot, when the condition is very bad the 'chemical burning' pain runs down the arm into the fingers. I havn't felt that in a while as I do my best not to trigger the pain. The pain will quickly arise by ANY finger movements or pressure applied with the fingers, so typing, writing, piano, guitar, even scratching can trigger it if one enough.

[Emanuele]

Perfect, the ultrasound may tell us a lot about your problem. In the meanwhile try just to ice it (10 minute on 10 minutes off for not more than 3/4 time) if the pain is flaring up and gently stretch the extensor group of your forearm, ideally you want to work on the edge of discomfort, never push it to pain threshold.
http://www.toptenreviews.com/i/rev/s...e-stretch2.jpg (do what the guy is doing in the picture below, not the one on top)

plus if you have any relief period, don't work too hard immediatelly on your laptop/pc or piano activities, try to increase the workload bit by bit and carry on stretching gently the area.

I didn't ask you about any pain on neck as you were very clear saying that the problem is exquisitely in the forearm in that spot and when it gets bad then can radiate down to your fingers (which one exactly though?)

[Ambitious6831]

Thanks again for the response, I will keep doing the icing and the stretch exercise you suggested.

I should stress that I never even try typing etc, because it really is so sensitive that the pain quicky reoccurs. I have no neck pain, the pain only flows down from the sore spot into my fingers when it's really bad so I havn't triggered it to this point in a while. As far as I remember I could feel a slight burning in the back of all of them. Sometimes I get a strange sensation where my two rightest fingers feel as if they want to stretch out away from the rest of my hand. The sore spot is clearly the cause of all of it though as far as I'm aware of.

[Emanuele]

the strange burning sensation that you get is only on the dorsal (back of your hand) or in the palmar aspect too?

Keep us abreast about how you're coping

All the best