Intracompartmental forearm pressure during rest and exercise.

To investigate whether effort-related dorsal forearm pain could be due to an increase of the intracompartmental pressure (ICP) in the dorsal forearm compartment, the normal range of the ICP at rest and during exercise was first determined in 11 volunteers using a wick catheter. The ICP at rest was 6 mm Hg (range, 2-11 mm Hg), and during exercise the pressure rose to about six times the resting level. Fourteen patients with pain in the dorsal forearm during exercise were similarly examined. In six patients the pressure at rest and/or during exercise was more than twice that of the normal persons or that of the healthy forearm. After fasciotomy four of these six patients were relieved of pain within three weeks, which might suggest a relation between ICP and pain.