Dealing with Arthritis,Carpal Tunnel,and other Hand Aliments

My carpal tunnel really improved by getting into weight training. I rarely get the pain anymore.

When I do, I rub Baby Orajel topically on the area and it allows me to do what I need to do, if I can't rest until the pain goes away.

I also trained myself to hold the pick with a light grip, rather than the death grip I had when I started. I also relearned my chording hand technique to be light as possible while still getting sound on the strings. I had found myself using way too much force holding down strings in the past.
 
I've had shoulder and neck issues for awhile after a minor accident. Couple that with a heavy 4-5 night a week gigging schedule and I've had the recipe for blowing out my hands

I do see a chiropractor on a regular basis in LA who specializes with musicians and he's been a great help. And we actually barter adjustments for lessons which is really great.

What I've learned is that most problems are actually from the neck back and shoulders, not the hands. Stress, posture, diet etc all contribute and the better you take care of yourself at all times, the better your hands will be.

Be self-aware when playing. I even took a couple "Alexander method" classes to improve my body awareness when it comes to posture. Do you distribute your weight evenly, when playing? Is your guitar in acomfortable position? The sum of all these things will improve everything if you take notice. I don't even sit on my wallet anymore when giving lessons or driving. I take multiple trips when loading groceries in and only using my right (strumming) hand.
 
Many repetitive strain injuries and tendinitis problems here. Current issues are finger extensors, wrist extensors at the lateral epicondyle, and patellar tendons.

I have found that no single treatment on its own does much, but rather a consistent and conservative approach combining as much as possible is the only thing that's helped.

Stretching, self massage, hot/cold baths, appropriate strengthening and mobility exercises, adequate sleep, a good diet, and some supplements are my daily regimen. You have to make time and commit to recovery. I've read it takes 100+ days for tendons to fully heal so this a long term thing. It was helpful for me to identify and adjust many lifestyle factors in order to eliminate contributing factors and allow proper rest for deloading the tendons and recovery.

I've recently added cissus quandrangularis and a product called Animal Flex, both were highly recommended for joint recovery and I have noticed improvement after adding these in with my daily vitamins and fish oil.

Most of these were mentioned already but I wanted to emphasize a comprehensive approach. There are no miracle cures or shortcuts.
 
Wow, 4 pages of problems; looks like FAS will have to recrute a geriatrics expert for the future ! Have a lot of small problems on right and left hand, due to some small accidents around home mostly. Close to here (in Bordeaux, France) we have a "hand hospital" that works wonders. My main subject is cramps on left hand, generally only when gigging with the band for over 2 hours. As I lose a lot of transpiration during gigs, only drinking liters of water (3L sometimes...) during setbreak help me survive till the bitter gig's end. Would prefer to do it with beer, but 3L is not in my capacity for maintaining "quality"...Think it has to do something with stress, also I stopped having dinner just too close to the gig.
 
Ha! I wish I could claim being old as the problem. Unfortunately I have a tendency to overdo things. My hand issues are from overworking my grip doing bodyweight/calisthenic type exercises. Guitar just aggravates it and slows the healing process.
 
Talked to Billy Sheehan about it (sorry for the name drop) he said he was starting to have issues, and then completely cut out sugar, and he has no issues, said it took a few months and it was like daylight and dark difference.
 
Great thread guys. It's sad to say the topic interests me too. Aaaaaa the golden years. I won't go on about my personal hand pain issues , but I wanted to bring something to your attention that I don't THINK I saw mentioned yet.

STRING GUAGE.
....for the guys who want to use less force and save their hands , going to a lighter string guage can really make a difference. When my hand was hurting bad , I dropped to 8's on my LP , and it made a world of difference. Alot of guys worry about loss of tone , but with the right pickups and guitar , and a little amp adjustment , you can get close to where you were before , WITH OUT the tension on the strings.
Billy Gibbons has pretty good tone. I think I read he uses 7's.
Best Wishes everyone.
 
I work in PT and did the video many have benefited from. I also work with a certified hand specialist and a PT who has a PHD -so not your average physio and a great resource for me to expand my knowledge.

Two huge concepts to share are the nerve glides and **Magnesium oil.............for Carpal tunnel

The magnesium oil binds to the receptor sites where the calcium normally would preventing the tight space that causes the median nerve to be pinched and result in the numbness symptoms.

Stay tuned for another video to expand on my last one. Because I have had median, radial and ulnar injuries from playing too hard (not guitar -usually climbing or Mt biking) I have done my homework to treat myself and thus gained some good evidenced based clinical tools and knowledge to then treat my patients and pass it on to friends
 
I used to get bad ache on both hands, I dropped to 8-52 string gauge for my 6 string (was on 12 - 56) and it's made the most difference of anything else I've tried.
Another benefit of this was when playing is easier, I tend to push more of an expressive style to fretting notes. Win win!

Apparently the guy who makes Ormsby guitars chose the multi-scale style of neck because of Carpel Tunnel. Not sure if there's been any research into that or not.
 
I was able to heal myself from a fairly bad case of carpal tunnel. After staying off it for almost a year, which is what my doc told me to do, I saw zero improvement. So I took the other route and decided to beat myself up and just work through it. I bought myself a dirt bike and I'm convinced the combination of vibration from the motorcycle and strengthening fixed me up.
 
RoshRoslin said:
I don't even sit on my wallet anymore when giving lessons or driving.
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A few years back, tilting vertebrae gave me bloody sore neck and shoulder pain plus numb fingers in my left hand due to the ulnar nerve being irritated.

Doctors just said wear and tear, pushed pain relief horse pills at me and showed me the door - so I went to a chiropractor. One of the questions the chiropractor asked was did I put my wallet in my back pocket - and told me that was very bad thing and to take it out ...... then he took most of the money I had in it for his fee .... fecker :)

All pretty good after only a few sessions - but I'm wary of getting too much manipulation done so now I do some gentle physio exercises on my neck to keep things open and won't use chiropractor again unless it gets really bad again .... which it hasn't in the 3 years since he fixed it first time round.
 
Choral Mist said:
Simple sugars are indeed known to be pro-inflammatory. Dietary changes have done wonders for me personally.
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Changes in my diet have also worked for me big time; I read a lot about inflammatory foods/substances and found cutting sugar and a lot of dairy foods have helped immensely for a few conditions. Both are noted as major contributors to chronic inflammation.
 
I did not know this thread was out here until a few minutes ago or I would have posted this sooner. I have been too deep trying to figure out how to use my AxeFX and play the guitar.

Long story short, I first started having problems with my left hand and particularity my ring finger in the late 1980s. For over 30 years I could never play more than 30 minutes a day with out pain. I have been through, steroids, ansaids, hand exercises, ...doctors including a couple of excellent ortho hand surgeons with no relief. Since about April 2015 I have been pain free and my playing hand is the best its every been and I am now 64.

I don't know if this will help any of you. All I can say is it works for me.

In early 2015 I took an internet guitar lesson from "The Commander in Chief" who some of you might know from her YouTube videos. She told me that she used a hand gyro exercise ball and that was how she built up her playing strength and suggested I try this. I purchased one for about $100 in March 2015 and after a week or so have been able to play as much as I have time for with no limitations.

This ball generates about 50 lbs of random pressure in your hand and thoroughly exercises every muscle in your hand, lower arm up to your shoulder. It has a heavy steel ball that is lopsided that spins inside the steel cover. Building strength in my hand allowed the muscles to reduce the pressure on my finger joints and solves my problem plus made bending... a lot easier. I tried to attached a video showing how it works but it was too large so i attached a clip of an Amazon ad. There are several companies that make these out of plastic but they dont make but about 20/25 lbs of resistance and dont last more than a few months. That is not enough resistance to build the strength you need and you will be wasting your money. I believe this one is still the best one available. I have been using mine for about 5 minutes a week since 2015 and it still works great. I hope this will help one of you like it has me. My playing would be a whole lot better if I had found this years ago.
Vpower.jpg
 
In brief I was developing Carpal tunnel symptoms mainly through the way I was typing at work, I found these two videos have completely eliminated any issues



 
Ok ordered one. I'll see how it goes.

CaymanSMC said:
I did not know this thread was out here until a few minutes ago or I would have posted this sooner. I have been too deep trying to figure out how to use my AxeFX and play the guitar.

Long story short, I first started having problems with my left hand and particularity my ring finger in the late 1980s. For over 30 years I could never play more than 30 minutes a day with out pain. I have been through, steroids, ansaids, hand exercises, ...doctors including a couple of excellent ortho hand surgeons with no relief. Since about April 2015 I have been pain free and my playing hand is the best its every been and I am now 64.

I don't know if this will help any of you. All I can say is it works for me.

In early 2015 I took an internet guitar lesson from "The Commander in Chief" who some of you might know from her YouTube videos. She told me that she used a hand gyro exercise ball and that was how she built up her playing strength and suggested I try this. I purchased one for about $100 in March 2015 and after a week or so have been able to play as much as I have time for with no limitations.

This ball generates about 50 lbs of random pressure in your hand and thoroughly exercises every muscle in your hand, lower arm up to your shoulder. It has a heavy steel ball that is lopsided that spins inside the steel cover. Building strength in my hand allowed the muscles to reduce the pressure on my finger joints and solves my problem plus made bending... a lot easier. I tried to attached a video showing how it works but it was too large so i attached a clip of an Amazon ad. There are several companies that make these out of plastic but they dont make but about 20/25 lbs of resistance and dont last more than a few months. That is not enough resistance to build the strength you need and you will be wasting your money. I believe this one is still the best one available. I have been using mine for about 5 minutes a week since 2015 and it still works great. I hope this will help one of you like it has me. My playing would be a whole lot better if I had found this years ago.
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Had wrist issues over the last few years but weight lifting and cortisone injections in the area seemed to have helped that. Was dealing with cramping in my fretting hand as well but I’ve been trying to warmup more before shows and loosening the death grip on my neck some and drinking plenty of electrolytes seems to have helped as well. Nothing like your your hand cramping right in the middle of a solo.
 
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