Medical question regarding physical bumps on fore arm.

January 13, 2013 3:28 PM

I work with a person that routinely has bubble shaped rounded bumps on the underside of their fore arms. The bumps are approximately 1 1/2 inches in diameter and ~ 1/2 inch high. The person generally has two bumps on each fore arm. Some days, there are no bumps. They don't seem to bother this person in any way. I have not asked them about this condition. The person has not mentioned anything about it and I don't want to embarrass the person by inquiring. I do know that this person has a child that is diabetic. I'm curious as to what type of medical condition, medication or injections that might generate this type of symptom. I could not find anything like it on Google searches...
posted by Jim Young to health & fitness (9 answers total)

Cupping therapy?
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 3:32 PM on January 13

I was going to say dialysis fistula... but they don't disappear. They can be quite big or small... don't google unless you're thick of stomach. I could imagine that they not seem too visible at some angles on some days. If they were new. I've seen quite subtle ones. But often they're big.

That was just a guess.... and now I'm thinking not, though.
posted by taff at 3:44 PM on January 13

Oh..... what colour are they? Vein coloured? MrTaff has some veiny looking lumps that come and go and they look like arm varicose veins. Which they aren't. Just one of the fabbo interesting, not-importnat things about him.
posted by taff at 3:47 PM on January 13

Maybe this person drives with her arm on the car door and gets a pressure bump, or has some other odd reason.
posted by theora55 at 4:05 PM on January 13

How long do they persist, and when they re-appear, are they in different places?

I had a coworker who developed some sort of sporadic lymphatic (or something) fluid buildup in his forearms - mostly on the inner side or on the tops of his hands near the wrist. No pain or discomfort. Had had them drained once, but they kept coming back so he left them afterwards.

According to him, it might possibly be from the chronic stresses of a rock climbing hobby with a certain body type/style.

Is your coworker low body fat percentage, built up around the upper back and shoulders and forarms, callused hands, maybe has a slightly hunched posture, and narrow waisted with tight thighs and calves? Likely a climber.
posted by porpoise at 8:31 PM on January 13

Could be histamine-related responses to pressure, which can happen in very allergic people (such as myself, for example).
posted by FrereKhan at 3:21 AM on January 14

If you want good answers then you'll have to do a much better job in describing what these look like, i.e. color etc. The fact that they're a half inch high then should make them fairly easy to ID...

"Bubble shaped", "rounded" and "bumps" all pretty much describe the same thing (I suppose there can be irregularly shaped bumps, but generally bumps are understood to be rounded) - and what other kind of bumps could be on someone's arm other than physical? Metaphysical?.... It's mainly "bubble shaped" that's confusing to me - the word bubble connotes something that is translucent and if these are more like blisters then that would be completely different than what a red bump or a flesh colored bump could be.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 7:05 AM on January 14

Lipoma?
But they don't go away, I think . . .
posted by fivesavagepalms at 7:56 AM on January 14

How far up on the forearm? Ganglion cyst?
posted by Iteki at 1:36 PM on January 14