Question
Hi Dr. Gold,
I played baseball throughout high school and college and 5 years after college.  I am 48 now and earlier this summer I developed intense right elbow pain any time I put any pressure on the right arm.  I play golf in the summer and am going to see a doctor about what can be done for my right elbow (which was my throwing arm).  What advice can  you give me? What do you think the 1st doctor I see will tell me?

Answer
Hi, Brian,

I never speculate on what doctors will say (although I often have opinions about what they *have* said).

The elbow pain may be a number of things.

If you were my client, my evaluation would include the musculature and connective tissue (fascia) from hand to neck, as ample room for muscular contractures and nerve impingements exists along that entire line.

Muscular contractures can be trained away by means of somatic education (my field) in a short period of time.  Soft tissue problems would best be the purvue of a rolfer (a good one).  Joint dislocation, if any, would be dealt with by those methods.  (See somatics.com/page3.htm and somatics.com/pdf/P_to_P.pdf).

Cortizone and bracing do nothing to deal with repetitive use disorders, but only address symptoms or minimize pain, temporarily (during immobilization), during which healing, it is hoped, will occur.  But sometimes, healing is not the issue, as no tissue damage exists and the inflammation, if any, is a result, not a cause, of the problem, nor the problem, itself.

If you would like to arrange a more specific consultation with me, by telephone, let me know.

with regard,
Lawrence Gold