Dr. J. Michael Bennett is a Fellowship Trained Sports Medicine Doctor and a Board Certified Orthopedic Surgeon. He serves Houston area patients from offices in Sugar Land and Houston, near the Houston Galleria. Call 281-633-8600 for an appointment at the Sugar Land office and 713-234-3152 for an appointment in Houston.
For more information, please check Dr. Bennett’s video on cubital tunnel syndrome treatments.
The following is from an interview with Elbow Doctor J. Michael Bennett:
Some patients experience numbness or tingling on the inside of the elbow that extends down to their fingers. That’s a nerve or neurologic issue, and it’s called cubital tunnel syndrome or ulnar nerve entrapment at the elbow. Essentially cubital tunnel syndrome is caused by a pinched nerve on the inside of the elbow. This is the same nerve that people hit when they say they hit their funny bone.
When they hit their funny bone and they feel numbness going down to their finger tips, that means that the ulnar nerve is irritated. At the funny bone, the ulnar nerve is close to the skin, and hitting it can cause a shock-like pain.
A lot of the time, the ulnar nerve gets irritated only because of the position of your elbows. If you sleep at night with your elbows in the flexed position or if you sit in the car for a long period of time or at your desk for a long period of time with your elbow in the flexed position, and your fourth and fifth fingers begin to go numb, that means that the ulnar nerve is irritated.
So what we typically recommend at that point is try an anti-inflammatory medication such as ibuprofen while we also try to modify your position by encouraging you to not stay in a position with your elbow flexed for a long period of time.
We even give patients night splints for wear at night to keep their elbow extended and so they don’t flex their elbows in the night. If those patients continue to have numbness and tingling after doing that, then typically we’ll get a nerve test to confirm if the nerve has been pinched and assess the severity of the ulnar nerve compression.
If surgery becomes the best option, then we might do what’s called an ulnar nerve decompression or a cubital tunnel decompression to release the pressure across that nerve so the nerve can heal itself again. Another surgical option is something called an ulnar nerve anterior transposition where the ulnar nerve is moved from its place behind the medial epicondyle to a new place in front of it. This moves the nerve to a more protected position at the elbow.
Over a long period of time, if that ulnar nerve is compressed, the blood flow is disrupted to the nerve and you can have permanent damage. This can affect your ability to function in sports and in your daily activities. So if you have chronic numbness in the elbow, we typically recommend to have it evaluated immediately. You want to get a diagnosis and have somebody monitoring it. Because if it doesn’t get better, you need to have something done about it.
If you’re experiencing numbness or tingling in your elbow or arm, call our Houston or Sugar Land office at 281-633-8600. You can also book an evaluation online by using the “Book an Appointment button” at the top of the page. You don’t want to ignore this issue because doing so could cause permanent damage to your elbow.
