Short Stuff: Funny Bone

Hitting your funny bone doesn’t just hurt, it feels really weird too. That’s because you’re not hitting a bone at all, but instead the most vulnerable nerve in your body.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, you're welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh and
there's Chuck and it's just the Juck Josh Show, the
short Stuff. Let's just start. I thought something happens when
we do short stuff because I'm trying to do something different.
And then I felt it. We've been doing this such

(00:25):
a good job for thirteen years, and whenever we do
short stuff, you're just like, I don't know how to
do this anymore. Right, I don't something, but I think
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.

(00:49):
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

(01:12):
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

(01:33):
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

(01:55):
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,

(02:15):
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,

(02:37):
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

(02:58):
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

(03:18):
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,

(03:40):
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,

(04:02):
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.

(04:24):
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,

(04:47):
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,

(05:08):
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,

(05:57):
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,

(06:18):
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

(06:40):
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

(07:02):
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

(07:22):
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

(07:43):
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

(08:04):
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

(08:27):
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

(08:50):
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,

(09:13):
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

(09:34):
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

(09:54):
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

(10:17):
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

(10:37):
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

(11:00):
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

(11:22):
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,

(11:42):
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listening to your favorite shows.