Saturday 10/14/2023
So after I wrote about my hand nerve last night, I did some internet reading. To summarize:
Two nerves provide sensation for the hand. The ulnar nerve serves the ring finger, little finger, and outside edge. The radial nerve serves the thumb, forefinger and middle finger. The radial is my main concern, based on my occasional symptoms.
The two nerves take slightly different paths down the arm, but both pass around the outside of the elbow. (Query to evolution: why? Much better protection on the inner side of the joint!) Stand with your arms hanging, palms forward, thumbs out. The ulnar nerve curves around that sharp bump on the inside of your elbow (the “medial epicondyle”), just where you can smush it by leaning on elbow. The radial comes around the outer bump.
Whatever, both pass through sleeves of tissue at the elbow, and again on the inside of the wrist (the famous carpal tunnel), that can become inflamed. Inflammation seems to be key to most problems with these nerves. Thus NSAIDs are the first line of treatment, and rest and ice. But I discovered there is also stretching exercises called, for no clear reason, “nerve glides” or sometimes “nerve flossing”, I suppose because it’s a boring thing you are supposed to do often, like tooth flossing. But there are tons of articles and YT vids on “glide” exercises for different nerves, and a radial nerve glide is a pretty simple thing (example) so I’m going to do some.
I had no symptoms from my two shots yesterday. Normal temperature. Slight tenderness in each bicep. Well that was this morning. In the evening I feel just the tiniest bit under the weather. Think I shall go to bed early.
On this quite open day, I joined Dennis for lunch. We went to The Lazy Dog, which turns out to be a chain (I checked online later), specializing in comfort food from all sorts of cuisines. It was a bit too noisy for comfort, and they messed up Dennis’s order, so — not recommended.
Codgerville 