There are lots of different parts of the body whereby pain can be relatively common. The elbow is not one of them. Therefore, when we encounter pain in our elbow, it is not hard to feel a bit perplexed and worried. What is the source of the pain? What should you do next? With that being said, below, we are going to provide some further details on elbow pain to give you a helping hand.
There are a lot of different sources of elbow pain
There are a lot of different sources of elbow pain. In some cases, the pain will simply go away by itself, and so you have nothing to worry about.
Nevertheless, there are incidents whereby operations and joint replacement surgeries are required. This is why it is important to see a professional if you are not sure regarding the source of the elbow pain you are experiencing and what you should do about it.
One-time injuries
There is no denying that a lot of the types of elbow pain that people experience today happen because of one-time injuries. This includes sprains and strains, as well as a fractured elbow or a dislocated elbow.
Such incidents can happen if you are hit hard while you are playing sport or if you fall over, for example. A dislocated elbow is when the elbow gets knocked out of place. This sort of injury often happens when people put their hands out to try and catch themselves during a fall.
Diseases
Elbow injuries can often happen because of diseases. In this case, the elbow pain is a symptom of a disease, rather than being the main source of the pain. Arthritis would be the most common example in this regard.
A lot of the different forms of arthritis can have an impact on your elbow. Nevertheless, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis are the two most common ones. The latter happens when your immune system attacks the healthy tissues in your body, causing your joints to swell.
Wear-and-tear injuries
The third and final type of elbow injury is a wear-and-tear injury. This is the sort of elbow pain that occurs because you have been repeating actions over time, which puts wear and tear onto the elbow.
This does not only happen if you are involved in manual work or you play a lot of sport. There are a lot of people who work in office jobs and experience these sorts of injuries. Essentially, in order to suffer from this type of injury, the action simply needs to be repeated again and again. Bursitis is a common example of a wear-and-tear injury that impacts the elbow.
As you can see, there are a number of different sources of elbow pain, and some are more serious than others. Rather than worrying yourself, the best thing that you can do is book an appointment with a professional as soon as possible so that you can get the assistance you need.
