Short Stuff: Funny Bone

it has to do with just trying to trying too hard. There, it is all right, they're looser, and I think it's I think it's fine. Oh maybe I'm not trying hard enough. Then, so Chuck. Since we're laughing here, let's talk about laughing. Great setup. Thank you again, I'm not trying hard enough. I don't know where we talked about this, but we we did a little sidebar and this many many years ago and some episode. I don't know what it was, but it doesn't matter, because the funny Bone deserves its

own little shorty episode. Everyone knows what we're talking about. We're talking about when you whack your elbow like on the corner of a counter or something, and you get that weird singular pain, singular sensation everywhere around the world. It's it's it's it's kind of painful, but it's kind of stingy and shocky feeling, and it's and it does kind of make you laugh sometimes. It's like it's a weird. Like I said, it's a singular feeling, unlike hitting any

other part of your body. It's hitting your funny bone. That's right, So it kind of that's why it has its own name and its own thing. It is its own, its own experience for sure. Um and no one apparently from anywhere I could see, is quite sure exactly where the funny bone got its name, because what you're doing there is hitting your funny bone. But what you're hitting is not really a bone. It's a nerve. Although some people think that it got its name from the bone

right above this area that you're hitting. The humorous which I like because it's that's what I heard from the playground. Yeah, it's a little play on words. I think I might have heard that in the playground too. That's one of those first little kid factoids that they think, you know, you know what it's called that it is because it's the humorous bone. Right. I think you're absolutely right. And then somebody else says, hey, you want some liquor made,

and the other kid says, I'll sue you're dead. It's right, and then recess is over and you wonder where your life's gone, and you just go inside and eat glue and boogers. There you go. Yeah, you get right back on top of the horse. That's right. So, um, the funny bone isn't a bone. I think probably everybody knows that. I regret saying it now, you know that I think about it. Um. But what you're actually doing is hitting a nerve, a specific big nerve called the ulnar nerve

that's responsible for it's really niche. It's responsible for the sensation, singular sensation in your ring finger and your pinky finger, and you have one on each arm because you have a ring finger and peaky finger on each arm. Ostensibly both are receiving um uh sensation and they're getting it from the ulnar nerve you have in each of your

your arms. Yeah. It begins in your spine and it goes from your neck all the way all the way down your arm, all the way past your elbow, all the way to the tips of those little fingers there, and it's I think there are only three primary nerves

for your arm, and that's one of them. And the big roll of that is, aside from the sensation of those fingertips, is helping those muscles out, helping your hand coordinate movement, fine movement, and your grip, like helping your forearm control grip, which, by the way, I just had a very weird sense. And I don't get massages much, but I just got a massage recently and this dude

worked me over in the best way. But he did this thing where he was rolling down the inside of my forearm with his arm, and every time he hit like the midpoint, like Luke Skywalker, my my hand would just clint shut. Oh it's cool. It was so weird feeling, and I laughed. I was like, well, that feels really weird. And I tried to keep it from happening, and he would roll down my forearm my inner form, and my hand would just go group and close shut, just like

Empire strikes back. It was very strange. I'll bet it was funny for him to watch. You try to play off like it wasn't a thing. Yeah, I tried to. I don't let that guy was like, I'm gonna give him another one of these. It was pretty great actually, So they call it the kung Fu grip move. I believe that's what it felt like. But yeah, that made me think of those I mean, that's what's going on with those nerves. Yeah, I wonder if he was hitting

your ulner nerve. Probably, but you said something, you said a little a little jackpot tapeit there, Chuck. That was the ulnar nerve goes from your spine to your neck, down your arm, through your elbow to your hand. And it is where it passes through your elbow that the potential for hitting your phony bone in that extremely weird singular sensation um can take place. It feels like a cliffhanger to me, I think, so all right, we'll be back and until you what's going on in that little

spot we're at after this? All right, here we are, we're in your elbow and here's the big reveal a little. You have a little tunnel there. I'm so creeped out that the ulnar nerve goes through called the cubital tunnel. It's very small. It's about four millimeters long. And it goes underneath. You know that bump, the little bony bump on your elbow is called the medial uh oh man, I had it earlier, epicond dial. It's like our gyle, but our gyles cousin epicond dial. Alright, So your medial

epicond dial. And that's that little bony bump on the inside of the back of your elbow. There and right there is where that nerve is sandwich between your bone and your skin. And there's the reason it's really easy to get hurt. It's because there's not a lot there, and especially if your elbow is bent, it's kind of right there under the skin, right, So when you hit it just right, when your elbows bent, you're mashing your nerve against between the bone above it and whatever hard

surface you're hitting it on. And the reason why you're hitting your funny bonus so weird is two fold. I have the impression, Chuck, that if you're other nerves in your body were similarly exposed, like the ulnar nerve is through the when it enters the cubital tunnel, that if you hit those nerves you would have the same singular sensation. But you don't have nerves that are exposed like that elsewhere in your body, which is why it's just it's

just the funny bone. But that's the point. You're actually banging a nerve and you don't normally do that, which produces a different kind of pain than the normal pain you get, like when you accidentally like hit yourself in the testicles. Well, it's funny you bring that up, because I wonder if there's a shorty on that, because that is also a singular sensational pain. Okay, save it, save it. Let me just say it's different than when you, uh

accidentally punch yourself in the stomach. You're like dough. It's weird that you mentioned testicles because that is a pain that feels different than any other pain. It is, and I think it was a terrible example now that you now that you say that, but I'm glad that I said it because it brought up a future short stuff for us. That's right, But what you're talking about is the difference between no susceptive pain and actual nerve pain.

No susceptive being the perception of pain, like when you stub your toe or something, and your body using the nerves send signals that say, like, you need more clearance around your bed, dummy, don't do that again. Uh, Whereas the other kind of pain is actual literal pain on that nerve. Yeah, Like the nerves are involved in no susception, but they're just kind of like, oh, it's time to get to work and let this guy noticed stop doing that.

But that nerve pain is the actual nerve being hurt, And so it says I'm reserving a special kind of pain for myself. Yeah, that's right. I don't know if you remember a couple of years ago when I banged my shin really badly. I did some kind of nerve damage and for six months I had a four inch space where it was just dead on the front of my leg my shin. It felt like it was is the worst pain I've ever experienced in my life. I'm glad.

And it was just kicking my bed. Yeah, I mean, the numbness was fine, Like I mean it was it weirded me out, but when it actually happened, I cried. I like, I like crumbled to the floor and like it wasn't crying, but like water just started pouring out of my eyes and it hurts so bad. No, that wasn't like I know you mean, it was just like the body's reaction was, all right, we're gonna start sending

water out of your eyeballs. Now, Yeah, that is a weird reaction or response if you think about it, it is. But the stuff, right, the one good thing about hitting your funny bone, in particular hitting that nerve is after a very short while, especially if you rub it for some weird reason, it will um subside and you'll be you'll go back to normal, like, you won't have that pain any longer. And by the way, there's one other thing about that um funny bone pain that reveals that

it's the ulnar nerve you're hitting. You'll notice that that pain shoots all the way down into your pinkie and your ring finger because the ulnar nerve terminates there. Oh, I don't know if I've noticed that. It's been a while since I've hit the old funny nerve, and so I'm gonna start calling it. Okay, what about a cubital tunnel syndrome. That's another thing, right, It's like a chronic condition. Yeah,

that's how I was gonna say. There's some cases where you can have like a strained ulnar nerve and it can produce chronic pain. Is that tennis elbow? Uh? I don't know. I don't know why they wouldn't call it tennis elbow? Uh. It seems a little bizarre not to but but maybe who knows. Just curious. But there was let's see, this was a Methodist hospital website. We have to thank a BBC site um and a couple other good ones. That was Jamaica Hospitals dot org. I love

that one. That's a classic. I wish that whole exchange would just be printed on a T shirt. Maybe we could sell that as a non fungible token. Oh that's a good one. But but then somebody would just getting sued. So no, I didn't hear that. What are you talking about? He's trying to sell pulp fiction, n f t s. He's trying to sell scenes from pulp fiction and Mirrormax is like, you don't own that? Wow, Yeah, that's interesting,

surprising that he would do that. He's been in the business long enough that you'd think he would know what he can and can't do. You would think, well, you got anything else? Nope? Okay, Well everybody that means short stuff is out. Stuff you Should Know is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listening to your favorite shows.