Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with elbow

Clowns to the right of me, Jokers to the left...

prufrock — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:31:05 -0800

I cannot tell right from left. Is this normal? So, ever since I can remember I have had trouble with the concept of Right and Left. I'm good at spatial recognition and general directions, but when it comes to Right-ness of Left-ness of things, I have had, upon occasion, to look at my hands and orient my thinking based on where Left of a certain place should lie.

For instance, a few moments ago I was putting on my earphones and it took me 2 seconds to realize where the earphone marked 'R' should go.

This is a minor quirk and doesn't impede my life in any way(except being an annoying RoboRally player). I was just curious if there is a name for this condition and whether other people experience it as well.

I'm right handed, if that matters. And I'm pretty sure I'm not dyslexic.

Funnily enough, googling for this, I found an article that talks about a discussion at MeFi. But I couldn't find it.

Help my elbow.

fake — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:08:28 -0800

Recently, my bike picked a fight with a car and it ended up breaking my elbow. Now I'm trying to recover as quickly as possible. Do you have any physical therapy tricks or tips? I cracked my left olecranon, but it was held in place by soft tissue so pins/surgery were not necessary.

Five weeks after the accident, my bone is mostly fused but my tendons/tissues are still very sore and my elbow extremely stiff. I have been working my elbow back and forth and rotating my hand according to the doctor's instructions, but I am having trouble getting beyond the 90 degree angle, meaning it is impossible to reach and touch my face or reach above my shoulders.

My elbow doesn't feel "tight" but rather the tendons do. I've been using a combination of NSAIDS and repeated exercises to gain a few degrees of freedom. Do you have any more ideas?

Barista elbow?!

waltzing astronomers — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:23:11 -0800

Help! I am a barista and my elbow hurts! What should I do? My elbow started aching after shifts a couple of weeks ago. It was minor, it would go away within a couple of hours. I started using a lighter tamp, which seemed to help for a while. Yesterday, it hurt for longer. This morning, I adjusted my grind so that I could tamp very lightly, but still, by the end of my shift, almost each time I tamped there was a slight pain in my elbow, much like I had hit my funny bone, but nowhere near as severe. Also, sometimes there is a slight tingling in my hand.

My shift ended at 11AM, it is now 9:15PM and my elbow still feels weird. I suspect that this is a result of putting too much weight on my elbow with hard tamping (which I have quit doing, I've used wimpy tamps for my last few shifts), and from the forceful motion required to wrench the portafilter into and out of the espresso machine each time I pull a shot. I am scheduled to work again tomorrow! This will require much more tamping and wrenching! I'm worried about permanent damage.

What should I do (quitting my job is not really an option right now)?

My elbow is not a noodle!

Madamina — Sun, 18 May 2008 12:10:53 -0800

2.5 years postop for a badly fractured non-dominant elbow (long since fully rehabbed, which I even finished early), I am doing more physical activity. It's sore, which I expected, but not in the way in which I figured. Tips? Since healing, I haven't had any problems in normal activity of any sort, including moving heavy things and repetitive motions. I have never been very sporty, so doing more physical activity (weightlifting included) is out of the ordinary for me.

Lately, I've been going to the gym twice a week for about half an hour of weights, among other things, and I'm on a very low-key softball team. Sometimes when I'm weightlifting, I will get a rather sharp pain that says, "Hey, quit it!" One day I decided to work through it, so I did a few very light reps using my dominant arm more, and it went away. I figured it was probably just incredibly tight due to disuse (of that particular motion), given that I know it's been fully healed for a long time now. Even so, it seems to get more sore than the other one, and I'm not really sure how to deal with it.

Should I just treat it like a regular sore joint? Should I try to do some extra stuff to re-rehab it somehow and bring it back up to snuff? Should I mention it to my PCP the next time I'm in for, say, a sinus infection?

You are not a doctor, my doctor, Dr. Phil, nor even Dr. Nick.

My elbow makes noise. What?

tksh — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 19:36:09 -0800

What to do if your elbow makes popping noises when you do push ups? I tried a quick set tonight after a few months of not having done any and I can hear and feel a minor popping noise in my elbow when go down. It doesn't hurt but it sounds like if a joint had snapped into place all of a sudden.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Why is McEnroe stopping me from picking up iron?

keep it tight — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 19:35:36 -0800

DamnTennisElbowFilter... Ok, I have tennis elbow in my left elbow. Got a cortisone shot (ouch!) about 3 months ago, but it's back...just let my elbow pain, there is... So what I am wondering is if I chew a couple of Aleve prior to hitting the gym, am I going to further damage something in there?

It really only hurts on biceps days, but I can bear it if necessary.

Anyone have experience with this?

TIA!

How to play guitar with 90% of an arm

escabeche — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 22:00:52 -0800

My arm broke. Is there a guitar I can still play? I broke my left elbow pretty badly about a year and a half ago. It's much better now, but my arm doesn't do everything it used to; I can't, for instance, bend it enough to touch my left shoulder, and I can only supinate my left palm about 10 degrees past the vertical. There aren't many life situations where I need to do these things, but there is one: playing guitar. I can still play, but the effort required to get my left arm bent around the neck and my fingers on the frets starts to really hurt my wrist after about fifteen minutes. And getting an A-barre down is impossible; I just can't turn my wrist that much. Does anyone have any ideas for how to get my guitar hobby back? Should I learn to play a left-handed guitar? Lap steel? Just give up guitar and work on bass? (I can play an electric bass with no discomfort at all.) Are there kinds of guitar that require less wrist torsion to play?

What's about rock climbing is making my elbow hurt?

tumbleweedjack — Tue, 22 May 2007 17:55:05 -0800

I've gotten into rock climbing (indoor rock walls), and I'm starting to experience some elbow pain. Here's what happens: I climb (currently I can comfortably climb most 5.9 walls and some 5.10A walls), and after three or four walls, my elbows hurt- specifically on the sides of the elbows, both arms. I have been climbing for about two months, and I go between once a week and three times a week.

A brief bout of googling reveals that I most probably have this going on.

Is this a chronic condition or is it something that will go away as I continue climbing and get in better shape? What can I change to prevent injury?

My phone wants to play with the other phones on the Internet!

By The Grace of God — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 15:11:37 -0800

How do I get my storied, adventuresome k750i on the internet and sending drunk pix of my elbow to the world? I have a Sony Ericsson k750i. I bought it from Carphone Warehouse as a t-mobile phone, went to the local unlocker and had it unlocked (but not debranded) and popped in my Vodafone card. Vodafone will let me text, top up and call, but no MMSing and no Web and no Email.

I'm on Vodafone Pay as you Talk, in the UK.

I've called Vodafone for settings (they say they'll send me an Install-o-Text for the settings, never has worked; I've gone to the Sony Ericsson website for Install-o-text, have gotten the texts but no internet. I've gone to Esato and many other websites, and have not yet found the particular perfect bits of set-up for me.

What is it I need to do? Do I need to debrand the phone? Do I need to debrand and rebrand to Vodafone? If debranding is called for, can I do it using the existing data cable? Is there a set of configurations somewhere that actually works for us PAYT customers?

note; in the hour or so before i unlocked it and put my vodafone card in, it did go to websites using the browser. No clue what the settings were..

I assume it's GPRS I want, and I want POPmail or a sync with an email account, and web-surfing and the ability to send MMS and email pictures to my flickr account.

thank you!!

What are the elbow/bicep straps so many NFL players are sporting this season?

Manjusri — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 00:30:34 -0800

What are the elbow/bicep straps so many NFL players are sporting this season? Watching the playoffs this year, I noticed several players wearing narrow straps just above the elbow and below the bicep. Some of them looked like they might simply be sweatbands to help keep their hands dry. But others clearly were not, made of some more rubber-like material. I suspect that these may be a new kind of brace to help control epicondylitis. If so, I'd be interested in finding a vendor to give them a try. Haven't been able to locate a picture, but they are not the standard tennis elbow brace.

Foot pedals for Macs?

louigi — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 10:57:32 -0800

Repetitive stress and foot pedals (for Macs)? I want to buy a computer foot pedal that can be used with a Macintosh. Three pedals seems to be the standard - I would like to be able to set it up to replace my shift, command, and option keys. Has anyone ever used such a thing? The prices seem to be quite variable. Are there better and worse foot pedals? Are they all programmable?

Explanation: I'm having some moderately irritating Ulnar nerve entrapment. I'm doing several of the things that are suggested on the pages I linked to, but the thing that aggravates it the most is that I hold down the shift and option keys with my pinky finger when I'm typing - and because I code, I use these keys a lot.