IF IT HURTS WHEN YOU DO THAT, DON'T DO THAT
Ahh, one of my father’s favorite Henny Youngman lines, “If it hurts when you do that, don’t do that.”
Tennis elbow anyone? My elbow started hurting about a week after I carried a 40-pound suitcase down the steps. The luggage twisted and my arm went with it. Three months later, after self-doctoring with the same brace that I successfully wore on the other arm, at my dentist’s suggestion the last time after being diagnosed with tendonitis, and not feeling “all better,” I gave in. I made an appointment to see my primary doctor.
I fully expected that the dr. was going to suggest that I go for physical therapy. That was the suggestion last time. My primary physician must have forgotten when referring me to a sports medicine doctor. The problem was that he recommended the doctor he suggested once before for a trigger thumb.
After getting an excruciatingly painful injection for that trigger finger from the specialist and researching for another physician when the treatment didn’t work, I opted to go to the doctor I scouted. On the next try, the new doctor resolved the issue with the trigger thumb virtually painlessly.
This time, when I called to make the appointment his office staff insisted, three X-rays of my elbow would be taken before permitting me to see the good doctor. They said he requires X-rays to make sure they’re not missing anything. Once I was situated in the patient’s room, the doctor bounced in, pressed my sore “funny bone” as I screamed, “Ouch,” and gave me the medical terminology before diagnosing “tennis elbow.”
In his 20-second report, he told me it wasn’t from lifting the suitcase and twisting my arm; it was just something everyone (well, maybe not everyone) gets in middle age, and he was waiting to get it himself.
He smiled as I reported that I once had it in the other arm, and my dentist cured it by telling me he had it and an armband helped. I don’t profess to get medical help on the Internet as the dentist with medical training did, but at that time I indirectly did. Instead of going to physical therapy, my husband ordered the armband online for me, which our dentist recommended. The pain was gone after two months of wearing the brace day and night.
At my recent appointment, the specialist told me I wasn’t wearing the armband in the appropriate location. He suggested that was something occupational therapy would help me with. In the meantime, he said it could take months or even a year for the pain to resolve itself, assuring me that eventually it would. My wise mother-in-law also said everything takes a year to get better.
So, the question is whether to schedule OT or look online for the proper application of the armbrace and see how it goes. The bottom line following the scenario is that as it appears, everyone is scratching everyone else’s back...
Doctor #1 said to see a specialist. Couldn’t he have touched my funny bone, heard me scream, and concluded, “Okay, its tennis elbow, and everyone gets it? It will resolve itself, and maybe throw in, ‘wear a brace?’”
Doctor #2 prescribed three X-rays before entering the patient’s room. Walking in, he said, “You’re not wearing the brace in the correct spot. Go to occupational therapy and they’ll show you the proper way to wear the brace.”
When I slid it closer to my elbow and asked, “Is this correct?” he responded, “That’s closer.” Couldn’t he have said, “If you wear the brace even closer to the elbow, it will alleviate the pain?’” Asking what the X-rays showed, the doctor responded that they showed nothing unusual. Just some wasted radiation?
About an hour after I left the doctor’s office, I received a voicemail directing me to schedule an MRI. I called back and said you must have called the wrong number. The staff member asked my name and date of birth and replied “No, the doctor recommended an MRI.” I told her he never mentioned an MRI to me.
She kept me waiting for about ten minutes after asking me to “hold for a second” to check with the doctor. She returned to the line and apologized, relaying that the doctor put a note in my file with the X-rays, that I should call again if it got worse or didn’t get better, I could have an MRI.
When I returned home, an email telling me to check MyChart popped up on my computer. “Assessment: The patient has symptoms of left elbow lateral epicondylitis. The patient understands that lateral epicondylitis is a self-limited condition. Occupational therapy was prescribed.
“The patient is welcome to consider undergoing an MRI evaluation of the left elbow should she wish to rule out concomitant underlying pathology potentially leading to lateral sided left elbow discomfort. All questions were answered at length for the patient at the time of the current consultation.”
Reading that, I laughed. Does Medicare allow this nonsense? I’m surprised. Having seen a specialist, I’ll go back to using my elder’s advice and for the time being, not use my arm in ways that make it hurt. After finding the proper way to use the arm brace, I plan on waiting out the time it takes to heal completely.
That “funny bone” isn’t always so funny, it also isn’t a bone