Hi,
I've been getting sore finger/elbows for the last year now, which can be mildly triggered by using my phone/typing too much, drilling, sitting around with bad posture for long periods but by far the worst thing is just a short 20 minute drive, which seems to instantly flare everything up.
Symptoms normally involve feeling a numb ache around the A1 joint on the ring finger, around the knuckle in between the ring and pinky finger. Then the same tendon feeling a mild sore/acheyness from the start of the wrist all the way up to the elbow, and then the elbow again feeling achey and sore to touch. The elbow pain is in a similar place to the inside tennis elbow, which is what I associated it with for a while. Nothing is ever painful, it feels like inflammation.
I've seen a few physios who pointed out my same side shoulder sits lower, which I think is a cause and I've been working hard to improve this. Luckily when I climb everything seems to loosen up and the pain normally disappears unless I'm doing a lot of driving, I was going to try taking a month off but I found that after a week the symptoms were getting worse.
The only person I've met who described a similar pain to me and from driving said she suffers from carpel tunnel syndrome, which after having a google does sound like plausible symptoms, and people do get it from driving, but I find I can pretty much get any online diagnosis symptoms to fit my problem. I've tried quite a few different techniques like not using my right hand, different seating postures, I've even tried steering with rope mr. Bean style, but I think that using the steering wheel with both hands is unavoidable on anything other than motorways.
Does anyone else get tendonitis or other symptoms from driving, or have any advice? Is it worth me trying to see a hand/wrist specialist, or get an ultrasound or anything?
At the moment the symptoms are very manageable, although I'm now applying for jobs which require a lot of driving, and so I'm worried that things will worsen/ deal myself some permanent damage.