Arm Pain

WHEN TO SEE YOUR DOCTOR

• Your arm hurts for more than two days.
• The pain gets worse with work or exercise.
• You lose feeling in the affected arm or hand.
• The arm also appears deformed or swollen.
• You cannot move or straighten your arm.
• Arm pain accompanied by chest pain or shortness of breath may signal a heart attack. Treat this as a medical emergency.

What Your Symptom Is Telling You

The arm is an amazingly adaptable tool. You use it for everything from throwing baseballs to lugging grocery bags to waving bye-bye. But like any tool, it can only take so much abuse.

The causes of arm pain are numerous, but most often it can be traced back to one thing: muscle fatigue. What feels sore and tired today should feel better tomorrow, no problem. But if the pain comes and goes—and comes back again—without an obvious cause, it might be arthritis.

If your pain sneaks up gradually and hangs around like an annoying relative, you might have a broken bone in your forearm or upper arm. You might think that broken bones are always obvious, but it is possible to experience a fracture without realizing it. You might hit your arm or fall, for example, and not feel the pain until you increase your level of activity or put stress on the broken area.

It's also possible for injuries to your wrist to cause considerable pain in your forearm. Among the most common are so-called repetitive motion injuries caused by something like typing, hammering or lifting. "The pain gets worse and worse as the week goes on because the arm isn't rested," says Tee Guidotti, M.D., M.P.H., a professor of occupational medicine at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta. "Eventually the strain on the tissues exceeds the ability of the arm to recover." Even though the injury affects mainly the wrist, the pain can spread all the way to the elbow.

It's hard to injure the upper arm itself because it's so well muscled. One common cause of arm pain that affects the upper arm directly, however, is bicipital tendinitis, in which a tendon near the shoulder is frayed or torn, triggering a flare-up of pain in the biceps of the upper arm.

Pain from elsewhere in the body can be referred to the upper arm. Lifting heavy weights, for example, can inflame the tendons in the shoulders, which shows up as pain in the upper arm.

Severe pain radiating down the left arm is a classic sign of heart attack. It can be accompanied by nausea, shortness of breath or chest pain, but sometimes pain in the left arm is the only symptom.

Symptom Relief

Treatment for arm pain depends on what part of the arm hurts and how badly it is injured. But here are a few rules of thumb.

Easy does it. If your pain isn't severe and there's no obvious deformity, doctors recommend starting with the most conservative treatment of all: rest. Give your arm a break from activity for a few days.

Slow but steady. If complete rest isn't possible—for example, if you have to use those aching forearms for work—cut the activity in half. Spread the task out and take frequent breaks. "It's reasonable to get people to the point where they are able to continue their activity at a level where they don't experience pain," says Andrew Tucker, M.D., a family practitioner specializing in sports medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio. "But it's unwise to work or play through significant pain. Pain is a warning sign."

Hang 'em high. Raise the arm to about the level of your chest during periods of rest. For example, if you're sitting on the couch, prop up your arm on a few fluffy pillows.

Be cool. Try running an ice cube back and forth over the painful area until the skin goes just numb to the touch, no longer than four minutes, advises Steven Bogard, lead physical therapist at the Mayo Clinic Hand Center in Rochester, Minnesota. Check the skin to make sure it isn't getting white or blue. Or use a chemical "quick-cold" pack wrapped in a wet towel, keeping it over the site for up to 20 minutes. Check the skin every 10 minutes.

Medicate. Take an over-the-counter pain reliever as needed, following the package directions, says Bogard.

Pick up the phone. If you try all these approaches and the pain is still there, call your doctor. Further treatment may include cortisone shots to reduce tissue swelling, lightweight splints and, in extreme cases, surgery to correct the underlying disorder.