Left Bicep Weakness

About three weeks ago I went into the GYM and was working out. I picked up a dumbell and tried the curl exercise, to "warm up". To my disbelief I could not curl the weight with my left arm. Just a week before I could use more weight just fine, rather easily actually. I have had no pain in the bicep or elbow joint. I do not understand why this would happen. One week it works fine, now not at all. It is almost as if I cannot feel the bicep.

The only thing that I can come up with is that when I sleep at night, my left hand goes numb. This is something that occurs on almost a nightly basis, and has been for some time. I could understand the correlation, but do not see it, as it has not affected the arm before this.

[Paderla Anitha, DNB]

Hello and hope you are doing well.

Your symptoms could be due to nerve compression at the carpal tunnel in the wrist. In this the median nerve is compressed at the wrist in a place called the carpal tunnel. Symptoms begin with numbness and tingling of the first three or two fingers from the thumb side. Then the numbness or tingling can spread upwards to the arms. Nerve conduction studies are quite diagnostic. Treatment is usually by splints and steroid injections. Surgery may be required in some cases. Only a consultation with your primary care physician can help diagnose.

Hope this helped and do keep us posted.