Thursday, February 3, 2011

Pain or Paranoia

Last night as I laid in bed, I started to feel pain in my left elbow area.  Not directly on the elbow, but slightly above on the outside of the arm.  I wondered if I had hit it on something but couldn't recall.  While I had almost fallen on the ice, I didn't.  No reason or justification for the pain.

Granted I had spent 1.5 hours either shoveling or pushing the snow blower repeatedly.  Is this tennis elbow?

Earlier this afternoon it appeared that there was bruising, green bruising but an hour later in different lighting, the bruising wasn't visible.  The arm looks slightly different and obviously feels (due to pain) different to me.  Now, the arm seems almost flaccid and flabby whereas the right arm is firm and muscular.  I know that there isn't such a vast difference between my arms, despite my boycotting of physical exercise.

The paranoia stems from my brother's fall incident of an elbow issue. The night before I arrived by plane to help his family drive back to Michigan, his elbow inflamed and the pain was intolerable.  He drove himself to the emergency room and almost passed out en route.  His elbow area was drained.  Test results later confirmed that he had an infection and was put on an anti-biotic. 

The pain isn't unbearable.  It's a minor inconvenience but I'm concerned about the lack of being able to tighten the arm and make a muscle.

Tomorrow morning I have a scheduled appointment for blood work, mainly to recheck my cholesterol.  I will be interested to see what my white blood count levels are as well; however, if the pain continues I may have it looked at during business hours rather than resorting to an ER visit over the weekend.

Sound familiar?  Any ideas of what I am experiencing?

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