Travis Barker has elbow surgery after month of numbness in arm and hand
Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker has had elbow surgery to fix a pinched nerve after a month of numbness in his arm, hand and fingers.
He confirmed the operation in an Instagram Story update on 7 October, saying it had taken place the previous day. He said the numbness had not lifted since a show last month. A nerve test on Monday after a recent show showed he needed a cubital tunnel release to repair the nerve, according to Billboard.
A cubital tunnel release is surgery to relieve pressure on a trapped nerve at the elbow. Doctors use it when that pinching causes numbness, weakness or poor function in the hand. Barker, identified by E! News as the drummer for Blink-182, did not describe the procedure itself beyond naming it.
His message was short. He said he should be good in a few weeks. He gave no longer timeline than that.
For a working drummer, that recovery window matters. Arms and hands carry the whole job, from rehearsals to shows. Time away can affect not only the player but the crew around him.
Barker has dealt with serious arm problems before. In 2023 he had surgery to repair torn ligaments and a dislocated ring finger injured during rehearsals. In 2018 he developed blood clots in both arms, alongside a staph infection, a bacterial infection, and cellulitis, a painful bacterial condition affecting the skin and tissue beneath it.
He has also had a separate hospital stay for pancreatitis, inflammation of the pancreas, a gland behind the stomach that helps with digestion. In June 2022 he was hospitalised in Los Angeles after complaining of cramps, with his wife Kourtney Kardashian by his side. He later said he had gone in for an endoscopy, a camera test that looks inside the upper digestive system, on a Monday feeling well, then developed severe pain that led to the admission.
This week he again shared a photograph from his hospital bed showing Kardashian with him, according to People. The image was posted around the same time as his update about the elbow operation. No further medical details were included in the posts reported so far.
