I’m writing this blog to detail the accident and recovery process from my dislocated elbow back in December. When I tried to find information on the recovery process and return to sports/activity, I found very little information, so hopefully this will be useful to someone in the future.

2018 ended on a little bit of a rough note as I took a fall while running down my home town trail of Gregory Canyon (on Green Mountain Boulder), smacking my elbow just right (or wrong) fully dislocating the elbow. Oh boy did that hurt like hell. I sat in the middle of the trail, taking very controlled deep breathes for what seemed like 5-10min (but could have been much longer), trying to figure out exactly what had happened. I initially thought I’d broken something, but as I probed the bones of the upper and lower arm, nothing distal hurt, and the hand, while it tingled was not numb. As we rolled up my sleeve my friend Andrea and I noticed my elbow appeared hollow, yep dislocated, and holy hell did it hurt.

Jake and Andrea used two jackets to sling my left arm to stabilize it so I could walk myself out. The final 1/2mi to the TH seemed to take forever, but with the help of a few friends I was able to slowly trudge my way out to the trailhead. For better or worse, the OSMP rangers had been alerted to my fall, so they met me at the trailhead and asked me to wait for the first responders to arrive. The firetruck pulled up, they interviewed me as I sat shivering in the cold, and once they determined I was ‘stable’ they allowed me to forgo the ambulance ride and to arrange my own ride to medical care.

Andrea was kind enough to drive me over to Urgent Care where we were hoping to get my elbow fixed, though when I described the injury the nurse said ‘nope, you need to go to the ER, because you’ll need to be sedated, given muscle relaxers, and it’s a violent procedure to relocate an elbow’….well ok then. We walked into the ER, second in line and I was soon taken back into the operating room. After some very painful X-rays (involving moving my still dislocated elbow around), I was sedated and next thing I knew I awoke, asking when they’d reset my elbow, glanced down and it was already done. They put me in a half cast, wrapped me up and sent me home with some Percocet.

Over the next week all I could do was rest the arm (in a sling) and learn to do everything else one handed. Opening pill bottles with my feet, typing with one hand, showering with a bag over my left arm, getting dressed was a fun adventure. After a week I went in for my first visit with Orthopedist, who gave me the good news that nothing was broken and nothing was completely torn (ie no surgery!). So they took the cast off and told me to move the arm around but NOT to lift anything heavier than a coffee cup. Let the rehabbing begin.

Over the next several weeks I gently used the arm for some limited activity; picking up items, typing, showering, but still very minimal weight/pressure. My range of motion had been reduced to 45-90 degrees, pretty pathetic, so I was tasked with moving the arm around and slowly working the ROM back, the most important thing to focus on in the first few weeks. After about three weeks the elbow finally began to feel stable enough so I started some easy jogging and pushing the ROM a little further. After four weeks I began some very light band work (5lb resistance), to try and reengage the atrophied bicep, tricep and forearm. By the new year I was running uninhibited, but still limited to 8lb of resistance in the left arm, so of course I did 60-100 reps of each exercise to compensate….cause that’s what you’re supposed to do right? Working not only on the bicep, tricep and forearm, but all the shoulder, back and chest muscles that had been neglected as the arm recovered. Rehab isn’t very sexy when you’ve got a 5lb weight in your hand.

At my 5week post-accident appointment my Dr took some additional Xrays, did some stress tests on the elbow, measured my ROM and declared me healthy enough to start weighted rehab and to increase activity. I was permitted to ski (YEAH), carefully, but to stay away from any activity that would put impact on the arm directly (volleyball and climbing) for at least another 3 weeks.  So that brings me to the present day (1/16/19), where I’m now up to 12lb weights for my left arm, I’ve skied, done some wall pushups, a few assisted pullups and have increased my ROM to 10-115 degrees (a dramatic improvement). I’ve still got a lot of work to get back to full strength (still at less than 50%), but I’m getting there. The most important thing at this stage (6weeks out) is to regain the final bit of extension in my arm to straighten it, easier said than done, but with daily stretching and strengthening I’m getting there.

Update 1/30/19:

Now just over 8weeks out from the injury and my strength is coming back quickly. I can do assisted pull-ups without pain, push-ups on my knees (albeit with a hitch in my elbow), and even started doing some very easy bouldering. The weight and stretching actually feels good on the elbow. I’m still not at full range of motion as there is some stiffness/tightness in the joint so I’m stuck at 5degrees (not full extension) and I’m almost back to normal on the flexion side. Progress…

Update 5/14/19:

Just over 5 months after my accident I’m ‘fully’ healed, but still dealing with some lingering joint stiffness and I don’t have the last 3-5degrees of extension in my elbow, which may never come back. I’ve been back at full unhindered activity, but still rehabbing the strength and flexibility deficits. I started hitting heavier weights in late March and climbing regularly as well to help stretch the joint and strength the tricep and bicep on the left side. It’s been a slow process, but overall I no longer feel hindered, but it still feels like there’s a block in my left elbow preventing me from fully straightening the arm.