Osteoarthritis is famous for affecting the knees and hips as our bodies age, and many people might think that it doesn’t affect other joints in the body. This condition occurs when the cushioning cartilage in a joint is worn away over time. In reality, this definition means that any joint that contains cartilage can fall prey to osteoarthritis, including your elbow. Since you might not have considered having elbow arthritis, you may be wondering what arthritis in the elbow might feel like.
- Painful
One feeling that osteoarthritis can cause in your elbow is pain. The cartilage in the elbow protects the ends of the arm bones in the joint, but when it gets worn away, that protection is missing. This can lead to bone-on-bone contact. The friction of this contact can cause grinding noises in the elbow as well as a significant amount of pain. For many elbow arthritis patients, the pain might get worse when the forearm is rotated. As elbow arthritis progresses, you may also start to feel pain when your elbow isn’t moving, and you could have difficulty sleeping at night thanks to your elbow pain.
- Unstable
Elbow arthritis can also make this joint feel unstable. Feelings of instability in the elbow are often caused by not moving enough when you have elbow arthritis. Not moving is a natural reaction if you’re trying to avoid pain, but lack of movement can actually cause weakness in the arm muscles that support the elbow. In turn, the weakness and instability can lead to difficulty doing routine tasks. After all, it’s hard to raise a coffee cup to your mouth without spilling with an unstable elbow joint.
- Stiff
Your elbow may feel stiff if you have arthritis. In part, the stiffness you feel is likely a result of the increased bone rubbing this condition causes, because the rubbing leads to more friction as your elbow moves. Also, not moving the elbow can play a role in your stiffness. Moving your elbow is an action that allows the body to pump natural lubricating fluid into this joint, but keeping it still means less of this fluid can get to the joint. In turn, this can cause a greater feeling of stiffness and can even lead to greater pain.
Arthritis in the elbow can feel better with help from Whatcom Physical Therapy
Our team at Whatcom Physical Therapy has helped many people treat arthritis, and we want to help people with all kinds of arthritis find relief from their symptoms. To help you get started, we’ll have you come into one of our clinics for a free screening. Next, our team will create an individualized arthritis treatment plan for you that may include therapy methods like:
- SCENAR therapy
- Therapeutic exercises
- Manual therapy
- Instrument assisted soft tissue mobilization (IASTM)
Contact our team today for more information or to schedule an initial appointment to begin treating your arthritis symptoms.
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