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Originally Posted by Sleeper
After awhile the pain went away. I got back into heavy dumbell curls full steam ahead.
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Oh boy. Judging by that statement I'm assuming that you didn't do any first aid or active rehabilitation. Probably what has happened is initially it healed but not in a good way. You probably put down a lot of scar tissue which constricts and tightens the tissue around it and is not as elastic, etc.
Since a year went by before you felt it again it could be that the initial injury was not too bad but since you wen't full steam ahead you may have been reinjuring it and laying down more and more scar tissue around the area and creating a "hot-spot" that is just now showing it's ugly head.
If you do front lat pulldowns with an overhand grip and you initially felt it on the outside bicep area then that would make perfect sense. It doesn't sound like it is too bad yet but your are going to have to start rehabilitaing it if you don't want to make it worse.
That means 1. You'll have to stop doing anything that actually hurts for a while. The weights will have to come down. 2. Since it is probably not an active injury (make sure you don't have bruising or swelling and that the pain is not persisting after you lift) you can use heat, massage, and stretching to try and begin remodeling the scar tissue (i.e. replacing it with the good stuff).
I'm not going to say don't lift weights but if it were me I might wait a few days and do nothing but applying heat, massage, and stretching it for while and then start back in with light weigths and using a grip that doesn't hurt at first. BUT you don't want to just stop using it again for a long time.
It's possible with injuries like this if you wait too long or mess around too much it'll never be 100%. Even now it is not certain you can get it back all the way. But I would be fairly confident in this particular situation.
Look in the injuries thread to get some ideas.
*Edit*I keep adding to this as things occur to me. You notice I said you could apply heat. What I meant was that you would heat it and then massage it, then stretch it. It's good for getting the tissues warm and soft.
If you are feeling pain then I would go ahead and ice it. Otherwise if it is just scarred and tight tissue you are feeling and not a re-injury then I'm not sure ice will do much except it could aid in recovery AFTER you work the bicep in which case you could try an ice rub but you should stretch it first while it is warm (very gently at first).