Elbow Injuries After a Car Accident

Almost everyone who sees a collision coming does the same thing. They lock their arms against the steering wheel and push. It is an involuntary response and it is a reasonable one, but it converts your arms into rigid struts between the car and your body at the exact moment the car decelerates.

A hinge asked to be a shock absorber

The elbow is a hinge with a small amount of rotation. It handles load well along its normal axis and poorly in any other direction. An impact absorbed through a braced, nearly straight arm drives the forearm bones into the end of the humerus and stresses the collateral ligaments on either side. If the arm was rotated at all, which it usually is because hands are on the wheel at an angle, the force arrives off-axis.

Tendon injury without the sport

The tendons that anchor the forearm muscles attach to two small bony prominences at the elbow. Gripping hard while a large force passes through the joint can strain those attachments, producing pain on the outer or inner elbow that behaves exactly like tennis or golfer's elbow. Patients are often puzzled by the diagnosis because they do not play either sport. The tissue does not care how the load was generated.

This pain typically shows up when lifting a coffee cup, turning a doorknob, or shaking hands, and it can persist for months if the tendon is never given a reason to remodel properly.

The nerve that runs through it

The ulnar nerve passes through a shallow groove at the inside of the elbow with very little padding over it. That groove is why striking your elbow produces the funny bone sensation. Direct impact against the door, the console, or the window frame can bruise the nerve, and swelling in the surrounding tissue can compress it afterward.

The result is numbness or tingling in the ring and little fingers, sometimes with weakness of grip. This is worth taking seriously, because nerve symptoms that are allowed to persist are harder to resolve than nerve symptoms addressed early.

Where the symptom is not the problem

Elbow and forearm symptoms after a collision are not always coming from the elbow. Nerve roots in the neck supply the entire arm, and irritation at the neck can produce pain, numbness, or weakness felt far down the limb. This is one of the more common reasons someone gets treated at the elbow for months without lasting change.

Sorting this out is straightforward with the right examination. Neck-driven symptoms usually change with neck position and follow a nerve root pattern. Local elbow injury reproduces on direct testing of the elbow structures.

What we do

We examine the elbow and the neck together, every time, because treating one while ignoring the other is how these cases stall. Call (725) 255-7333. Henderson, southwest Las Vegas, and North Las Vegas.