I seem to have hurt my wrist or forearm, and have been having some pain playing. It started more than a week ago, and has been getting steadily worse. I didn’t injure myself that I’m aware of, such as falling on my hand or something. I had been doing hand stretches like this, stretch #1, here, or #4here, because my forearm feels so tight a lot and the stretching feels really good and relieves some of the stiffness below my wrist, and I wonder if I overdid things.
Anyway, the pain started a week or more ago, and now its to the point where I’m not playing guitar at all (from playing a total of 1-2 hours a day in small chunks, every day for months). I’ve even been favoring my other hand in tasks like driving or carrying things, partially because of the discomfort in my left hand, partially hoping that not using that hand would help me get better. My only guess is that I overdid my stretching and strained a tendon, but that doesn’t really follow with the problem worsening over a stretch of more than a week. I do type all day for a living (programmer), but I’ve never had issues with that causing RSI in 25ish years of typing for my work (I’m 46).
Have any of the players here experienced wrist issues on your fingering hand? Did you get over it? What happened? How long did it take to be better? Did you need to stop playing for a while? Did you need medical treatment?
I will see a real doc if this continues, but my reading suggests there’s not much to be done except immobilize the wrist and wait for things to improve, so I’m interested in anyone who has had (or knows someone who had) a similar problem.
Yikes! That doesn’t sound good. Someone else can probably provide better advice that me regarding wrist injuries, but I’m guessing that easing off the guitar for the time being was probably a smart move.
Which hand do you mouse with? Try switching mousing hands if it’s your mousing wrist that’s aching.
How hard do you type? Do you have a light touch or do you try to drive your fingers through the keyboard?
Do you play a keyboard? If you do is it set up ergonomically correct or is it sitting on top of a table and you do a praying mantis type thing to play it?
I have occasional flare-ups of tendonitis or whatever it is and switching mousing hands usually helps. One time I thought it would be cool to get a manual typewriter and bang out some letters (this is before I had a home PC - I’m 46 too). Between that and my fingerstyle guitar and bass playing I got the worst tendonitis. No more manual typewriter! I also have terrible posture playing my keyboard so if I do it too long things start to ache. I haven’t bothered to re-configure my studio since I’m happy with the way everything is set up now (except for the keyboard).
Pretty light – my wife is always amazed at how fast I type, since I’m not a classic touch typest – my fingers are all over the keyboard, and I can type faster than her, a touch typest.
I used to play piano quite a lot, but lost interest in it after a while, maybe 2-3 years ago. I re-took up guitar last year, after having not played it for 10+ years, and have been playing pretty intensely, without complaints. I dunno if I overdid, or if it was those stretches.
Thanks for sharing. If you got RSI/tendonitis from a manual typewriter, that was probably back in the day then, so I guess you’ve had to be pretty careful ergonomically since then? I’ve never had wrist/hand problems, so this is pretty frustrating to deal with all of a sudden, and surprising as well. I do type with my keyboard set really far back, and rest my entire forearm on the desk, which I’m told is a pretty good position to avoid RSI – which wasn’t my plan, its just the way I’m comfortable.
I just had to practice guitar with my son (he’s nine, so we practice together, or he wouldn’t practice most days, though I’m working on him). That made me pretty sore in the wrist. This sucks!
squeegee, I would see a doctor. The only reason I am thinking this is not that your condition sounds bad - it is more than the best cure may be to lay off a specific activity - or even all activity, wearing a brace - for a week or a few weeks. I state this simply from your comment that your condition appears to have progressed. You should know if you need to restrict your activities.
As for stretching my hands, well, I’ve never done it. I don’t trust it - I remember reading stories in the 80’s about people overdoing it, for some reason the never-quite-made-it-but-was-in-Whitesnake-for-a-while guitarist Adrian Vandenberg comes to mine…
When I first started playing chords, I pressed into the fretboard quite hard and had aching muscles from my fingers to shoulder, but mainly through my wrist. It could be that, if you’ve only been playing for a few months, you’ve strained something from using the muscles on a new angle.
As they say on the aspirin bottles; If pain persists, see your doctor.
My first guitar was a Hondo. I don’t know if it was Friday when they built it, but it sucked. It couldn’t be tuned, really: I might play a song in G and it sounded fine but then if I tried a song in E, it sounded pretty bad. I dated a woman who had a Hondo and it didn’t seem to have the same problems.
After playing the guitars of others I realized that the action on mine was REALLY high. At the octave mark, I would guess those strings sat 3/8" above the fretboard. I took it back to where I bought it, thinking they might adjust the steel rod in the neck but they said that was as good as it gets.
It took brute force to clamp down and my wrist would get tired. Plus it would sound like shit so I didn’t play much till I got a decent guitar around fifteen years later. IOW maybe you can address the problem in part by having a luthier lower the action.
In addition to making sure the action is too high, a neck that’s too thick and/or a scale too long for your hands can be a strain to play.
I have small hands. I’ve been playing for over thirty years, but in the last few years have I noticed pain in my wrists and hands after playing my National resophonic guitar (which has a thick v-shaped neck). However, I can play my thin-necked, shorter-scale Martin for hours with no such pain. (I am looking into getting the Nationals’ necks sanded down).
Could this be a carpal tunnel issue? I don’t know for sure - I’m not a doctor or a very good guitarist. But that certainly isn’t a rare issue for guitar players. My uncle had surgery for carpal tunnel a few years ago and wears a brace when he plays now. (Or at least he did.) My father had the same issue and had to cut back on playing for a while. But I think they both had that in their picking hands, not the fretting hand.
Re: carpal tunnel, a guitarist I knew said you need a specific B vitamin. I can’t remember which one, but I was having some wrist pain and he suggested it. Poof, it worked charms. I take a B complex now, and no worries.
Great – you can injure (it sounds like seriously for Adrian) your guitar hand by stretching. Aw, fooey.
You’re right, I should go see a doc. I just hate turning that key, because I bet it’ll take a while and $ to figure out what’s wrong, and there may be little that can be done except wait and heal…
Naw, I’ve played since I was a teenager, but lost interest for a decade and played a different instrument. I re-started guitar almost exactly a year ago, with some rustiness but no problems until now.
Its not my guitar – I’ve got severaldecentones, and they’re set up properly and strung with 9’s (well, the Tele has 10s right now, I’ve been going back and forth on string guages). But, yeah, I know what you mean about action and hard-to-play guitars. My first one was a Hondo or similar – it never sounded right, never stayed in tune, and hurt to play. My guitar teacher sold me his '70s Fender Mustang for like $100 or so (yes, this was in the '70s), which was a huge improvement.
I hear you. Again, IANADoctor, but you never know - they may just say “yeah, you overdid it; put on a brace and don’t play guitar or other nimble-fingered stuff for X weeks” - in which case, better to get started with that now…
I don’t know much about carpal tunnel, but that’s worth looking into I guess. The pain is a little odd – if I play guitar, its the wrist and nearby areas that hurt. But even when I just rest my arm and hand, my whole forearm (and even my upper arm sometimes) aches a bit. Which sounds like nerve pain to me; I’ve have some experience with sciatica, which is a pinched nerve in your back that causes shooting leg pain, so I know how pain can be in a very different area than the injury that causes it.
I’m sure there was. John was one of these guys who knew a lot about a lot of things. IIRC he was working as an engineer but on the side, he was always researching things, probably could pass a nursing board exam, yadda. The guy was just a sponge when it came to learning and I think he read it in some medical journal. B complex…not pricey, worth a try, and don’t spaz if your pee goes yellow.
Hey, that reminds me. If any guitarists want a very cheap humidifier for the guitar case, just take an old audiocassette case, poke or drill some holes for vents, and cut down a kitchen sponge to fit inside. Dampen sponge (just a few drops), insert. That was John’s home made invention.
But that certainly isn’t a rare issue for guitar players. My uncle had surgery for carpal tunnel a few years ago and wears a brace when he plays now. (Or at least he did.) My father had the same issue and had to cut back on playing for a while. But I think they both had that in their picking hands, not the fretting hand.
