Bone Bruise in Throwing Elbow - any experience/advice?

Also - FYI - the original "injury" was the first weekend of December in case you might wonder about my math above...

Private doc or Kaiser?

My son got one 2+ years ago and it has never fully healed.  He got it at the end of his 8th grade season by being hit by a pitch.  Rested a month and started fall ball and felt pain so we just shut it down.  He then lifted weights extensively for several months with no pain, but had the pain when he started to thrown in January.  Basically had to stop pitching, and as an outfielder has to manage his volume of throwing.  We've been to several orthos, including a very big name, and they're all puzzled about the lack of healing. Every doctor advised the same thing: rest, ice, stretching.

My guess is that the football lifting that he did after the initial bruise exacerbated it even though it didn't cause pain at the time.    My advice would be to do absolutely nothing until he can throw pain free.

We went through this last year.  My son had the exact same diagnosis.  We used an ASMI recommended ortho who told us the only way to heal this is through rest.  The doctor also gave him a series of band exercises to keep his shoulder healthy.  They prescribed 3 weeks of rest to start.  That didn't help so he had to rest another 3 weeks.  About a month into throwing he had a setback that caused him to rest another 3 weeks, but since then he has been fine.  There is very little information available on these types of injuries so it was very frustrating when we went through it.  Best of luck to your son.      

We were told a bone bruise could take up to nine months to heal.  This was a femur (I think?  It's been a while) in a gymnast.  It did not take that long, but it did take several months.  We did try some alternative treatments--acupuncture, cupping (no, really--google it), dry needling (by a PT) and a chiropractor who manipulated her knee.  I don't know for sure that they helped, but she was back to vaulting sooner than we expected, and a little acupuncture and cupping never hurt anyone.

Bumping this back up.

Son went through full rehab and dedicated throwing program since last April with well known remote training organization.  No throwing until August, weight training, mobility, etc. to get his body to be able to move effectively.  All went great.

Threw off the mound last Saturday and was hugely excited - velo way up and everything felt great.  On Monday, the pain was back and it seems he likely bruised the bone again.

Anyone have recent experience with "slamming" - evidently this is how folks in teh throwing world now refer to this type of injury?

No advice, but very sorry you are dealing with this again.

My 15 yo son had some inflammation in his throwing elbow last July that was causing him pain. He shut down until December and just lifted weights plus S&C and in the winter was doing shotput for his HS track & field team. He started to ramp up in December and after the first week in January had elbown pain from throwing. Different location. Had an Xray and no inflammation was observed. He had an MRI yesterday and waiting for the ortho to discuss results. Current diagnosis is posterior elbow impingement. 

ALF648 posted:

Bumping this back up.

Son went through full rehab and dedicated throwing program since last April with well known remote training organization.  No throwing until August, weight training, mobility, etc. to get his body to be able to move effectively.  All went great.

 

Threw off the mound last Saturday and was hugely excited - velo way up and everything felt great.  On Monday, the pain was back and it seems he likely bruised the bone again.

 

Anyone have recent experience with "slamming" - evidently this is how folks in teh throwing world now refer to this type of injury?

As I posted earlier, we went through this with my son but we also had a teammate that went through it right afterwards. He has had three setbacks and the last one they prescribed 6 months of no throwing.  I assume the slamming refers to extension when the arm should be pronating?    

Yes - its a result of the arm straightening for a fraction of a second as opposed to a smooth movement through the plane of rotation at release.  What seems to be really challenging is that when you look at video pronation happens as it should but there's this one tiny moment of straightening.  It's really challenging to figure out how to "de-pattern" what's obviously deeply baked into his brain

ALF648 posted:

Yes - its a result of the arm straightening for a fraction of a second as opposed to a smooth movement through the plane of rotation at release.  What seems to be really challenging is that when you look at video pronation happens as it should but there's this one tiny moment of straightening.  It's really challenging to figure out how to "de-pattern" what's obviously deeply baked into his brain

Have you taken him to a sports trainer to work on his throwing mechanics? A friend owns a sports training facility and works with a lot of pro athletes across many sports. He said one of the biggest causes of arm issues is mechanics. He can typically identify where the breakdown is and work on different drills and exercises to correct the issue. By no means is he a throwing or pitching coach. However, he is darn near a genius when it comes to sports and physical movement. 

He has been working with a very well known remote training group - and has completely re-made his mechanics.  He was able to throw without pain since August.  300+ longtoss, flatgrounds,  full bullpens.

The issue as as I understand it is that the brain very quickly can revert back to long standing patterns when faced with the need to throw strikes in a game.  The old compensations that existed previously can come back when there's a guy in the box