Im lucky enough to have this problem, but mine came from having
several spinal surgeries over the last couple years. Its subdued over
time, but still causing pain once is a while. The technical name is
Cubical Tunnel Syndrome. It’s the same nerve that causes what is
called the funny bone pain. Nothing funny about this though.
When bed ridden after the surgeries, like most people do, I would
sit up in bed using their elbows to push up, and then my hands. It
wasn’t until after it caused a problem did my doctor suggest rolling
on my side, and then pushing up. The surgeries are over for now, but
the elbow pain isn’t. Oh, and if someone says they can fix it with
surgery, don’t do it. I found out that what they do is move the nerve
from your elbow, and pull it around so it doesn’t get pressure.
Apparently most people have more pain after the surgery than before.
On my bench Im using some make shift forearm pads to keep my elbows
up when I can. I mounted my forearm pads on blocks so I can move them
around. A company use to make a chair that had hydraulic and spring
assist forearm pads, so when you moved, then moved with you, but they
don’t make it anymore, and it was expensive as you could imagine.
Another thing to watch out for if you have this problem is when you
sleep. If you sleep with your arms folded that will not help you at
all either. My doctor had me wearing cheap elbow pads, but on the
wrong way, so the elastic was over the elbow. This kept me from
bending my arms in my sleep. It wasn’t fun and I never did get use to
them, but it did help ease the pain. I finally trained myself to
sleep with my arms straight, most of the time.
If you don’t take care of the problem it can affect your hands and
fingers as well as cause a lot of pain in your elbows. You can lose
your grip and finger control, numbness, tingling, tremors of the
hand, all of which are no good at all for a jeweler.
I still have the problem, and a doctor told me it is really hard to
make go away totally once you have it, but you can keep it under
control and get along just fine with it. If you catch it in time and
take action. But its all up to you to do it as un fortunately, it’s
most likely going to be with you the rest of your life.