Working With That Pesky Radial Nerve

The radial nerve in the arms is one of the most frequently discussed areas for potential injury in rope bondage. This post digs into that a bit and looks at what can go wrong, and some of the better ways for lessening the chances of that happening.

When you’re into bondage, you generally want to tie people’s arms. That’s a thing that we’re all about – taking away some of another person’s power, restraining them, adding all the intensity of that power imbalance to what you’re doing. It makes life even MORE sexy and fun, and that makes for a great time!

That said, we’re also generally into maintaining the people we play with in good condition, so that we can play again, and have a great time again. And that’s where a little knowledge about human anatomy and nerves comes in.

Now, just to be clear, I am not a medical professional, and a doctor’s advice will always trump mine. I’m just a dude who enjoys tying people up and sharing what I know with others who are also interested in tying people up.

If you have any medical concerns or something has gone badly wrong, consult a doctor, and be honest about what’s happened so that they know what they’re dealing with.

When it comes to tying arms, there is one phrase you tend to hear a lot when it comes to potential issues. The radial nerve.

So What The Hell Is The Radial Nerve?

The radial nerve is part of your peripheral nerve system, and it emerges out from under the armpit and spirals loosely around your upper arm until and then moves on down to the wrist. It’s fairly important for sensorimotor stuff like controlling your arm and hand and feeling things through said arm and hand.

Because of the way it spirals and becomes easily accessed in the upper arm, the radial nerve is typically what gets affected the most in bondage situations, because we often have rope going across the upper arms – especially in those lovely chest harnesses and other clever looking things that we love tying so much.

There are also places in the lower arms, including the wrists, where the radial nerve can have rope dig into it and affect it.

This doesn’t mean you immediately have to stress out. It’s generally not a big scary thing.

If there’s a bit too much pressure on the radial nerve, what people will tend to notice is something like tingles in their fingers, or their hands going a bit numb, or perhaps even some difficulty in moving their fingers. Pins and needles isn’t uncommon. This can happen with ANY nerve impingement in the arms; it just happens that the radial nerve is frequently a culprit in rope bondage.

One easy test to make sure everything is going well is just getting your rope bottom to make a fist every now and then, as this tests both sensation and movement at the same time. If they make a fist but can’t feel their finger tips, there is likely some minor pressure affecting one of the nerves, e.g. the radial nerve. The same applies if they can’t move their fingers.

So you might run a finger under your wraps, smooth out the tension a bit to make sure all the ropes are pressing evenly, or move your bands of rope up or down to slightly more optimal locations.

This will often solve the whole issue.

In rarer situations, where the nerve has been impacted a bit more with very tight rope or very unhelpful rope placement (like the dips between muscles in the upper arms, or rope tied tightly over the wrist or elbow), you may notice more serious effects, e.g. being unable to move your arm properly, or at all.

Helpfully, once the rope is moved or re-tied, that situation does tend to be temporary. The person who was tied may experience quite a bit of pain as circulation is restored to the nerve and it starts complaining loudly about its mistreatment, but within somewhere between 30 minutes to a day or so, things generally return to normal. I highly recommend painkillers, adequate hydration, and rest.

Interestingly, because the nerve is one whole unit going along your arm, it can refer pain and numbness to different locations in the arm. Even if your rope is only around someone’s wrist, you can still numb the whole arm. The human body is a fascinating thing!

An important thing to remember is that peripheral nerves tend to heal by themselves unless completely severed. You may accidentally irritate a nerve from time to time, but generally if left alone after that for a good space of time, it will sort itself out. That said, the length of time it will take to sort itself out can differ, from the 30 minutes mentioned earlier, to days, even to weeks or months, depending on the level of damage.

Here’s another fun fact about humans and their bodies: individuals will have their nerves running in slightly different locations, and will have very different levels of nerve sensitivity.

I’ve seen people tied with very tight rope in the worst places (and believe me, it made me very uncomfortable to see it) and they had no ill effects at all. They had a great time. For whatever reason, their nerves were very well protected – effectively bombproof.

I’ve seen other people tied much more safely in comparison, and those people had way more difficulties. Their nerve system was either more exposed, or more sensitive, and even with relatively loose wraps (easily able to get a finger or two beneath the rope) they still had a negative response and their nerves complained like hell.

That’s happened to me as well, on occasion. At first I thought I’d just suddenly become super inept with rope – maybe that one person I was tying made me anxious, and I’d just fucked it up?

It was later that we worked out that this person’s peripheral nervous system was just super accessible – even if they hadn’t been tied for ages, you could literally pick out where their nerves were by putting light pressure on their arms with your fingers, and watching their reactions. And for this person, it was really, really difficult to avoid those spots. The nerves were just that sensitive.

So I ended up just not tying their arms with rope very much unless I was tying a very safe and wide double column tie, which for some reason always worked really well for them. Rope across the upper arms just really wasn’t a good time for them, because it was way too easy to impinge their nerves.

I could tie their legs just fine – but with their arms, it was either a nice safe double column tie across their lower forearms, or leather cuffs.

Because why use rope bondage when it’s not fun for that person?

That said, I’ve only come across one person like that so far, and I’ve tied quite a few. So you should always check your pressure and rope placement first, before assuming it’s just your person.
Only after you’ve eliminated all other possible causes first should you start to wonder about this person’s sensitivity.
It’s just the responsible way to do it.

I’ve also heard that people with diabetes are more predisposed to nerve damage (because diabetes can cause nerve damage anyway, and pre-damaged nerves are more likely to be vulnerable) and really thin people tend to lack insulating factors against nerve damage too – there’s less additional body mass, whether fat or muscle, insulating nerves against rope pressure.

Situations More Likely To Contribute To Radial Nerve Injury

Some situations are a lot more high risk than others for causing radial nerve injury. Really high pressure rope, combined with inappropriate rope placement (which of course can change from person to person, depending on exactly where their nerves can be accessed) are most likely to cause it.

Most nerve injuries (not all, but most) that I hear about have generally been caused by the tied person being suspended completely off the ground. The rope harness that they’re tied into is all that’s holding them up, and it digs deeply into their tissues and compacts the nerves. In regards to radial nerve injury, it’s a very risky situation.

It doesn’t always happen, in fact, it very often doesn’t – but it’s really not uncommon to browse accounts of suspensions and come across references to nerve injuries.

Another situation where it’s more likely is your weekend long rope intensives and training sessions. Partly this is because it’s a situation where people may be nervous about learning new ties, or pressed for time during the lesson, and fumble their rope placement; but mostly it’s because nerve damage and nerve irritation can be cumulative.

Let’s say you have one rope session. You do a few ties, in a few different positions. The rope compacts the flesh a little more than usual, and grinds on the nerve a little bit, but not too much. It’s only a minor bit of pressure, and everything is fine for that session.

Then you do several more sessions in that one weekend. The radial nerve gets roughly the same amount of pressure each time, but the irritation builds up. By the end of the weekend, that’s one stressed, irritated radial nerve, and the person being tied is really no longer having a good time, because every time something goes across their arms, it hurts.

It takes a bit of time for nerves to heal. So when you’re repeatedly tying someone again and again over two or three days, their body isn’t really getting much time, and ongoing damage or irritation adds up to one stressed out nerve.

The same would be true, but worse, if someone was getting suspended again and again over a short space of time, e.g. a month. Suspension is way more stressful, and the potential for damage is really high. The cumulative damage adds up, and they might be quite a bit of time healing from the amount of damage caused, which might also impact on their every day life.

Wow, that’s some scary stuff!

So now you might be thinking, what does that mean for me? How can I make sure that my partner is safe while still having a super hot time with bondage?

Useful Guidelines For Having Hot Sexy Times Despite That Pesky Radial Nerve

Don’t tie too tightly. You want to be able to slip one or two fingers beneath the band relatively easily.

Try and make sure your rope bands are flat and even, and not crossing over each other. That tends to create spots of more intense pressure and discomfort.

Whenever possible, avoid tying on or too closely to a joint. Nerves are more exposed there.

When you’re tying wraps of rope around a person or around a limb, try and make sure that each individual wrap has an even tension with the others – meaning, they’re all exactly the same degree of tightness. This tends to provide a wider, even pressure across the band, so that no one strand of rope digs in too deeply.

The wider your nice even rope band, the wider the pressure distribution. This is good.

If you can find a nice firm area of muscle, then generally, tying on top of that muscle is better than tying in dips between the muscles. The idea is that the muscle provides some nice insulating bulk between the nerves and the rope.

Interestingly, making sure your person is adequately hydrated prior to bondage scenes is a good idea in general, and is also a good idea in adding water insulation.

Be mindful of high risk situations e.g. rope intensives or suspension. You can still do them; but now you can do them from an informed perspective, and be aware of cumulative irritation as you do so.

Be extra careful with super thin people, and pay attention to possible medical conditions.

Always, always pay attention to the reactions of the person you’re tying, and discourage them from ignoring “bad pain”. I’ve had people try to tough their way through discomfort because they were afraid of looking like a sissy, and not being badass enough.
Do what you can to discourage them from this kind of thing. It’s not helpful for them, and it’s not helpful for you. Tell them you’ll be very disappointed, and no more rope for a month!

Last but not least, remember – often when you get warning signs, all you have to do is move the rope, and maybe adjust the position a little bit.Your rope partner is also less likely to freak out if they know that it’s that easy to fix, and that peripheral nerves heal, so getting them a bit of education about this is helpful in preventing worry or panic.

Alright! Now you know quite a lot more about nerves and radial nerves in particular than your average human on the street. Good for you!

If you like to learn by video, or you just feel curious, then check out my “Resources” page ; there’s a link to a video on the very same topic.

Now go on and have a good, well educated time with your rope bondage, you crazy kids.