Elbow Pain

Stack

I posted this in the hormone therapy thread also, but it had no responses so i thought i would try it here.

Has anyone one had elbow pain that goes right down to the fingertips? i guess i am trying to see what is causing this pain. last week my knee was causing some pretty intense pain, now that has let up (although not gone) but now my left elbow is really aching. it seems like its bone and muscle pain. anyone else have this problem? i dont want to drag it into the docs office if it is a side effect of the arimidex. it just seems wrong to have all this weird pain.

LuAnnH

If I had to guess I would say it was from the arimidex. Your joints aren't as mobile due to the lack of estrogen and it will cause arthritis & pain. You can try glucosamine/chlonidrin (spelling?) to help. Also, you can see a physical therapist for exercises to help strengthen the muscles around the joints that hurt. That will take stress off your joints and ease the pain. Aleeve or arthritis strength over the counter meds may help also. The best thing to help work it out though is exercise.

LuAnn

sharebear

Stack,

I can tell you all kinds of stories about this pain. I had a lumpectomy 12 years ago with 28 nodes removed, radiation and 5-FU. I started complaining about pain in my elbow that radiated down into my fingertips. My last 3 fingers actually started gowing numb. It's not all the time, but when it happens it is bothersome. The elbow actually throbs and throbs. I have had nerve tests done to see if there was permanent damage done. They say no. The Onoco. says it was the surgery. Surgeon says it was the radiation. The Radiologist says its wasn't him. Nobody wanted to accept responsibility or give me any answers. I had no signs of swelling or lymphedema. I literally complained for years. They would just give me pain medication for when it "really" bothered me. Years later I saw something on a medical channel on how they now know it's not good to remove all the lymnodes and how it causes just such issues with your elbow and fingers. All I can say is medical knowledge is growing and changing day by day and they did the best with the knowledge they had then.

It may sound funny, but the pain seems to come back when the weather changes. In Michigan....the weather is always changing.

Good luck.

Sharon

miamimama

Talk to your doctor about a cortisone shot. I have pain from my wrists to my thumbs. This AM I want for cortisone shots. The wrists do feel better and I am hoping the pain will be all gone in a fw days.

The doctor I saw is a "hand" surgeon. (I didn't know that was a specialty). He did not agree that the pain was caused by Femara - he said it was a form of tendonitis. Hey - I don't care what he calls it - just cure it!!!

Anonymous

It sounds similar to carpal tunnel syndrome, except my own experience was with pain primarily in the hand and middle fingers, occasionally radiating up the forearm. The actual diagnosis was made via EMG which is not a very pleasant test. I'm trying to avoid the surgery because I just don't have time to have a disabled hand for a month, but the cortisone injections have been okay for now. When I mentioned to my hand guy how common CTS seems to be among us who take AIs, he agreed that it could be related. This estrogen depletion sure does affect us in such a weird variety of ways, doesn't it?

~Marin

wallan

My elbow pain is weird too. I now know what "stiff joints" mean because not only do I get pain, but it stiffens. And now occassionally in the middle of the night, my fingers are stiff on that arm too...

I know its from the treatment. Either rads, or lymph node removal, or surgery or AI or something....

Its my right hand and I am right-handed so I just hope it doesn't progress so I can't use my hand...

Wendy A

Stack

will they do cortisone shots shots in the arm where you had lymph nodes out. they told me to keep everyone away from that arm. no needles/ blood pressures or anything like that. i was thinking along the lines of carpel tunnel also, but i thought that was a hand thing more than up the arm. i cant stand the fact that im 42 and my body acts like its 82. i hope it all goes away when im off the AI. although thats at least another 3 years.

miamimama

They did the cortisone shot on both sides, including the side where the nodes were removed. It is now nine hours after getting the shots and there is no pain in one hand - still some pain in the other. But I feel so much better. I just hope it lasts a while.