Strange pain in my arm - any ideas ?

The pain you're describing, it sounds very similar to what I have and I was diagnosed with tendonitis in my elbow. I've been going to physical therapy twice a week to help fix it. She does magic with her hands every time and taught me exercises to strengthen the tendon. The pain is still there but it's managable, I can now do 95 pushups total in one day. 1 x 35 and 2 x 30 pushups, so 3 times a day, 95 total. But every time I raised my Bartonella herbs, the pain flared up. Sometimes so bad that even cooking or standard computer use became painful. And the other arm started developing the same problem.

I experience an even worse flare-up with biofilm busters. So my guess was that it was inflammation. Not sure.


Either way, physical therapy helped a lot. It took me almost a full year to get to 95 pushups but my tendon is a lot better now.

Post Edited (Vimzor) : 12/14/2024 7:02:51 PM (GMT-5)

"picking up anything even moderately heavy - like a kettle or a jug of water,
-chopping vegetables
-unscrewing food jars"

I have that too. It's very annoying. Just normal usage of my arm seems to trigger it at times.

I would be careful with exercising and wait a bit longer. I pushed through the pain at first and it made everything a lot worse.

Creatine helped a lot, it has anti-inflammatory properties and makes exercising easier.
But then I read some people have hair loss from it and I stopped. :p

Maybe physical therapy / physiotherapy would help? As Lyme patients we are used to doing everything on our own. But this could be something a professional could help with.

small update

i am in the week off antibiotics in my pulsing regime - and normally all my markers would have started to improve after a day or so off antibiotics as the herx eases off

this week that's not the case - i am struggling with more fatigue/less productivity, less exercise tolerance, slower walking etc - as if the herx had continued or even worsened a little even after stopping antibiotics.

i have been pretty stable for the last half dozen pulses - so this is v unusual and caused me to look at my tracker / record to see if i have changed anything that might account for it

i tried frankincense while i was still on the abx - but that was over a week ago now - so doesn't really fit well with things getting worse in the last few days

the only other thing i changed was using DMSO topically - 4x a day on my right arm / tendinitis

i wondered if it might be antimicrobial in some way or maybe disrupt biofilms - so i looked that up - and to my surprise - i found there are papers showing that it does indeed dysrupt biofilms even in low concentrations -
( under 1% dmso) and especially when combined with abx ( there will be residual amounts of abx in my system for a few days after pulse ) ref paper here https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/pmc9428811/

this fits with my experience - it defo doesn't feel as strong as other biofilm agents i have tried - not an instant knock back effect - more a gradual increase in fatigue and overall aching over the 4 or so days i have been using it.

its not as strong as xylitol was for me - or things like EDTA i have tried in the past - but then again the doses have been pretty low - around 1g or less of 60% DMSO applied topically 3x a day( DMSO is a kind of super solvent that goes through the skin 10x better than water and will distribute itself systemically ).

just thought i would pass it on in case others here are, like me, sensitive to biofilm agents and planning on trying it -

i do think its helping my sore arm a little

Vimzor said...
I find it surprising how many things are anti-bacterial or biofilm agents.
But does that mean, in the case of DMSO, it's helping your arm, but also making it worse at the same time?

hard to tell Vim

it feels like it reduces the pain slightly after applications - but the systemic symptoms i am getting seem to be building up the longer i am using it - much like other biofilm agents

of course - its only association - rather than proven causation - so more my best guess as to what's causing it is DMSO - as i have careful records and nothing else added in the last week or so fits.

i have done 5 days of regular DMSO and dont really want to be doing biofilm agents while i am off abx in the gap between pulses - so will take a break now and see if
a, the pain in my arm worsens or continues to get better
b, the herx like effects seem to fade again

hi Vim

yep - definitely improving now - maybe 50% improved -
still very sore first thing in the morning s- but soon loosens up and becomes more manageable
and doesn't hurt much to do regular things in the day now - just have to be careful with doing anything more strenuous which might aggravate it

my regimen has been -basically:
- resting it from any heavy exercises that obviously hurt to do - or strenuous physical tasks that do so
- continued light exercises that didn't seem to hurt it
- stretched it thoroughly before hand in both directions and in various positions - until it didn't hurt to do so any more
- experimenting with trigger point release - but hard to know if i am doing that right

i stopped applying the DMSO on tuesday evening after deciding i thought it was causing some kind of herx reaction that seemed to be worsening over the 5 days i was using it

i felt worse thursday - but then gradually improved yesterday and today -
this seems to fit with DMSO disrupting biofilms - causing a worsening of fatigue, aching, reduces exercise tolerance etc while i was using it and then gradual improvement again once i had stopped -
DMSO has a 16hrs half life - so again makes sense that the worst day would be the day after stopping.

of course this is far from conclusive - but i will certainly bear it in mind as a possibility in future

i think it may have actually helped on the arm when using it - it was the systemic symptoms that were the deal breaker form me.
its probably tolerable - but i am in the off week of abx and didnt want to be taking biofilm disrupters in the off period.

thanks for your input !

thanks Astro

i am continuing to experiment with trigger point release

i keep meaning to make some solomon seal root tincture - but of course by the time i get round to it - i have typically resolved whatever ache pain or strain made me think of it - until the next one pops up

i guess i should learn my lesson and get some underway!

i just bought some dried root ( not many places have it over here )

i just got enough to do a trial batch and will report back in a few weeks 👍

thought i would just update on this - in case its of any help to anyone

the tendonitis in my right arm is very gradually resolving

Approach to recovery :
my current approach is to stop any taxing exercises that feel like they might be aggravating it
and continue with those that seem ok
also stretching and flexing the joints in all directions before doing any exercise at all in the hope that this protects from further irritation to the tendons to some degree.
certain movements or strengths are still below normal - eg grip strength - but is slowly returning

Solomon seal tincture update:
i did make some solomon seal root tincture - 1:5 50% alcohol -
i root i bought was dried cut strips - so as i do with most cut herbs i blended them in a kitchen blender till powdered then added the liquid ( the finer the particles the better the extraction of active chemicals )

what i didn't realise is the herb is extremely mucilaginous ( slimy when wet )
so the result was the consistency of wall paper paste
so i didnt bother trying to strain this at the end - just spread the paste on my arm topically
it dries in a couple of minutes - so no biggie
it has an interesting effect - seems to be almost like an analgesic - pain reduces about 30-50% within a minute or so.
i dont know if its is actually helping healing - or just reducing the pain - but i have kept this routine up - applying it morning and night and its moving in the right direction - tendons are known to be slow to heal

thoughts on cause:
in terms of the cause - it doesn't seem to be auto-immune in nature.
at least i haven't had the same thing occur anywhere else since

it may simply be a random lyme type thing - spontaneous injury or inflammation at a particular site for not known reason - as many of the aches and pains we get are

my best guess is it was a combination of factors - i had worked my way up to do ing more exercise over teh last 12 month or so - and had been working out pretty hard around the time it happened - enjoying the ability to do more - and seeing my body respond positively was encouraging - but i was also herxing pretty hard with pains down arms and legs when it occurred -

the exercises were not anything super heavy or asking for trouble - but perhaps pushing through with training while herxing hard with pains in muscles is not such a great idea - it could be a risk factor for injury if there's lots of inflammation in the muscles and connective tissue already. in my case i was having pretty strong pains down my arms and legs and a weird kind of tightness in what felt like the tendons that was painful to move whoever i had been motionless or resting a while and would then ease as i moved around again.

PS. Thanks WBF for sharing your thoughts

i do remember having a weird need to sleep in certain positions from when i was more ill with this thing