How tight do you wear your bracelets/straps?

[Tseg]

I've heard of issues related to tight bracelets aggravating carpel tunnel symptoms. I've also heard of adverse reactions to watch metals... but I recently have experienced a different medical condition... watch elbow.

It goes back several months ago when I bought a new Super Engineer bracelet for my Orient Saturation Diver. The watch, while heavy at ~ 230g, was always top heavy. With the new heavier bracelet (bracelet 130g) the watch is very balanced but I'm guessing the whole ensemble now weighs in over 275g! I have been wearing this watch for yard and auto work on the weekends in lieu or wearing my BLNR.... and more recently have been wearing it after work during the week (related to a watch accuracy tracking experiment). In recent weeks I have been feeling sharp tendon/muscle pains on my outer arm just below my elbow - almost debilitating my left arm. I can only attribute the pain to this beefy OSD watch I've been wearing... so over the past week I've gone to exclusively wearing my BLNR but the pain was not subsiding at all. A couple of days ago I opened up the BLNR micro-adjustment in the clasp (as I tend to wear watches a bit tighter - fit my pinky between skin and bracelet) and within minutes the elbow pain was reduced by 50%. Now today I still have some elbow pain but it is probably 25% vs. where it was at its worst... and directionally correct.

I can only believe these pains are watch related. I will also point out that over the past couple months the weather has been warmer so my watches were wearing even tighter. Who would have thought a watch could cause tennis elbow?