Students must wish they could give summer exams the elbow

It’s the time of year when the sun is shining, the flowers are blooming and, of course, the students are in the midst of exam season.

While the rest of us have been enjoying the beginning of summer, they’ve been cramming information into their fertile young brains.

It might be why I had a couple of related cases last week.

A girl studying to be a lawyer came into the surgery, followed a few days later by a boy doing history.

They both had similar symptoms. The back of the elbow joint – over the wee bony bit that sticks out – was quite swollen.

The swelling was quite soft, and I could feel it moving.

It wasn’t very tender, but it hurt a bit when they were, tellingly, hunched over their desks.

Student’s elbow – or olecranon bursitis as it’s known – is when the bony outside part of the elbow becomes inflamed and swollen.

Unsurprisingly, it affects students, but it also used to be known as miner’s or plumber’s elbow. Anyone experiencing a mild but repeated injury in the area, or who makes repeated elbow movements – as part of their job, or a sport involving throwing – can get it. It also might appear as a result of a one-off injury, such as banging your elbow, but it can also develop as part of arthritis, or for entirely unknown reasons.

A bursa is like a thin, lubricated cushion, which helps reduce friction between a prominent area of bone and the surrounding soft tissue. The olecranon bursa smooths movement between the bony tip of the elbow (the olecranon) and the overlying skin.

In olecranon bursitis, the wee sac becomes inflamed and fills up with fluid.

There may be an obvious swelling over the back of the elbow, although there is generally little pain.

If there is a lot of fluid, we may put a needle in to drain it, but it tends to build up again.

Generally, it clears up on its own if further pressure on the elbow is avoided. Sometimes, though, if the elbow is particularly painful and red, it means there’s an infection – which might need antibiotics.

For the regular variety, anti-inflammatory medicines and avoiding leaning on the elbow are the first ports of call, but there’s the option of steroid injections for persistent cases.