Have you ever accidently hit your elbow on something and immediately you experience a very strange numb feeling on your hand? Well congratulations, you just hit your funny bone. As you probably know, hitting the funny bone isn’t very funny, so why call it the funny bone? According to this article, there is no exact answer for it, but there are two suggested ideas. One idea is that it’s an anatomic pun; the nerve runs along the humerus, which sounds like “humorous”. (Haha) Another idea that the funny bone got its name is because of the funny (odd) feeling experienced once we hit it. However, the real reason behind the name funny bone is still a mystery.
The funny bone is actually not a bone but an ulnar nerve. This nerve runs from the neck to the hand, and then it innervates several muscles in the hands. Like the other nerves in our body, the ulnar nerve is protected by bones and muscles. However, as the nerve pass through the elbow, it runs through the cubital tunnel. Since the cubital tunnel is protected only by fats and skin, it is vulnerable to hits. Once we hit that spot we are actually hitting the nerve against our bone and compressing it. This is also the reason why we feel the numbness, tingling and pain that travels down our forearm and into our hands.
Most of us probably hate the feeling we get from hitting our funny bone, however thankfully for us; the pain goes away in a few seconds. For some people, that is not the case. There is a syndrome out there called the cubital tunnel syndrome and basically the pain from hitting the funny bone just doesn’t go away. The cubital tunnel syndrome occurs when there’s a prolonged period of disruption when the ulnar nerve is making its trip to the elbow. According to mentalfloss.com, over time,”Muscle weakness in the forearm and hand can set in, and the pinkie and ring finger can curl up in a position called the “ulnar claw.”” However there are ways to fix the cubital tunnel syndrome, for example elbow splinting, hand therapy, and surgery. So the next time you hit your funny bone, be thankful that it only lasts for a few seconds.
Sources:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/21474/what-funny-bone-and-why-does-hitting-it-hurt-so-much
http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/cubital-radial-tunnel-syndrome
The tingling from hitting the funny bone is such a strange sensation, but there is another interesting fact about the elbow’s sensory receptors that I find interesting. I’m not sure if you’ve ever done this, but if you lightly touch someone’s elbow, they won’t be able to feel your touch (for some reason, doing this to people and seeing how long it would be until they noticed was popular at my high school). I unfortunately cannot find any information on this online, except for http://www.answers.com/Q/Can_you_feel_it_when_someone_touches_your_elbow which doesn’t explain why, but merely someone points out the obvious. I assume that we don’t feel it because of the excess skin that is around the elbow when it is straightened, or the thickness of the skin in general. Also, while there are the nerves inside the elbow as stated in the blog post, there might not be many nerve endings on the outer skin. I’d be interested to know if anyone else has any theories about this. Test it out for yourself and see if you can touch someone’s elbow without him/her noticing!
When we in the high school, the most common thing boys loved to do was to squash their funny bones and let girls to listen to those funny sounds. But when I told that school story to my mom after, my mother, who is a 20 years doctor told me seriously that I can never try that action just because of fun. What she said is just like the article you wrote that the nerve around elbow is fragile but important to human, we should try our best to reduce the time touching funny bones. If we cannot avoid it totally, at least we can help ourselves not to make it “click” too many times.
I never knew why my funny bone hurt so badly when I smacked it. So thanks! Since you informed me about compressing the nerve area around the funny bone causes sensitivity, I wanted some quick tips on how to keep the pain from continuing. Orthopedics Answers says that if you hit your funny bone then keep your arm extended right after it can help being as the area was compressed. There are some other helpful tips on the that website as well!