Video Transcript: Ulnar Nerve Glide for Alleviating Inside Elbow Pain

Hi, everyone! Dr. Orit Hickman here from Pain Science Physical Therapy. I wanted to put together another quick video to talk to you about elbow pain, but the last two videos that we talked about was pain on the outside of the elbow. Now, we’re going to talk a little bit about pain on the inside of the elbow and down into the pinky.

So, sometimes patients will have nerve symptoms, and the nerve symptoms are coming from irritation of the ulnar nerve. And so, if you are having irritation of the ulnar nerve, one of the best exercises that you can do is a nerve glide. So, if you’ve watched any of my videos before, you will see that I love nerve glides. They’re just wonderful exercises. And so nerve glides - the reason why they’re great is that nerves really like blood flow. They really like movement. They really like to have enough space.

And so, the nerve glide that I’m going to show you for the ulnar nerve is one that is really simple. You start with your arm at your side, and then you bring your arm up just like that to cover your ear.

Now, when you do this, you may feel a little bit of discomfort in your elbow and in your pinky, but you really shouldn’t feel pain. You might feel a little bit of stretch, maybe even a little bit of tingling, but it shouldn’t be painful.

So, what we usually tell patients to do is repeat it about five to ten repetitions maybe three to five times a day and to continue doing the exercise if it helps your symptoms. If you find that it doesn’t help, then you definitely don’t want to continue, especially if you find that it increases your symptoms or makes things worse. It may not be that you have ulnar nerve irritations.

So, this is an ulnar nerve. This is just one of many different types of ulnar nerve nerve glides. But, it’s a good, basic one. [It’s] one that I really like to give to patients, especially when we’re starting out.

Let me know how it goes. I’d love a thumbs-up if you like this video, and please hit the subscribe button if you’d like to have/learn more about pain and physical therapy and especially persistent pain. Have a great day!