Hi everyone
What’s the consensus on nerve damage (from accidents), recovery, and its effects on weight training? I couldn’t find any research or reading material on this topic, but I’m interested in learning statistics on this. I’ve had an incident recently and would like to hear how these things end up in the long term.
My experience: I’ve had a needle hit a nerve in my right elbow (late january) and has only allowed me to do squats, ab work, and train my left side (anything that does not use the right arm because if I do I get shooting pain in my right elbow and sharp tingling in my hand). My doctor told me to keep training but avoid the right arm for a bit and to see a neurologist if the pains don’t go away in a week or two. It’s been a week and the elbow pain has gone and I can completely extend and bend my right elbow pain-free, but there’s some sharp tingling in my right palms. When I do air RDLs, going below the kneecap causes sharp tingling in my right hand. Same for the top of an air bench press or pushups. I think the discomfort is on pace to fully go away by next week and I’ll be getting back to “normal” upper body and posterior chain training more slowly than the typical pain experience just to be safe.
Other info: When the nurse put the needle in, I had a sudden funny bone feeling that I didn’t think much of when I got the blood drawn because I usually feel a bit numb/weak in the arm where the venipuncture happens. 1 day after the draw I did deadlifts and bench just fine without pain, but I wasn’t able to do bicep curls with my right arm without sharp tingling in the hand and elbow at the top and most of the bottom so I did some assisted slow reps. 2 days after the draw I wasn’t able to deadlift at all and looked up the symptoms and saw it was nerve damage and got it checked up a few days later. On that day until a week and a half later (so until early this week), I couldn’t even try to extend my right elbow past 150 degrees without a shooting pain occurring at my ulna in the bend of the elbow accompanied by tingling sensations in my right palm and its 3 middle fingers. So even relaxed hanging of the arm was painful. My doctor said maybe the deadlifts/bench I did the day after the draw may have made it worse.
Thanks,
Anudeep