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Pain in Thumbs and Fingers when Playing Guitar, Esp. Left Thumbby guitarist
Back in the late 90's I picked up the guitar after a 13 year absence and within a few weeks developed tenosynovitis ("trigger thumb" - deQuervain's) in the right thumb. Months of various therapies including acupuncture, cortisone, rest, splints did no good and I had surgery, which helped. Then some more absences from playing and when I went back I could no longer move the right thumb well enough to play so I started working with a pick. After about a year I developed the same trigger thumb in the left hand and that also didn't respond to PT, cortisone and the like, so another surgery. Now I'm trying to play again but still have pain in the left thumb where it meets the wrist. Got an x-ray, the doctor showed me the osteoarthritis. The cartilage is wearing away and it's easy to see right on the x-ray. I play for half an hour, I have pain. The right ring finger is starting to hurt. The index fingers of both hands have nodules at the first joint and are starting to bend inward. Yes, it's a sorry mess. As a classical player I had a very relaxed posture with the guitar and in fact the left thumb deQuervain's occurred because I tried to mimic my acoustic teacher's playing style which is definitely NOT classical posture and caused my wrist to twist around and get stressed out. Last thing I'll mention is that I'm hypermobile. All the joints in my body have too much "play" in them. If I press the fingers of one hand against each other and stiffen them, they splay upwards like a boat. The tip joints of my fingers all collapse and I've never been able to strengthen them, which has limited my technical ability on the left hand especially. I've gotten tendonitis on other parts of my body from doing yoga because of this hypermobility, which I didn't realize was a problem until I couldn't walk from pain. That's quite enough. Any thoughts on how to address the arthritis and other tendencies in my hands would be most appreciated. ---- Joshua Answers: Hi Guitarist. The surgery didn't fix anything because surgery doesn't beneficially alter the Tendonitis dynamic. In a Tenosynovitis situation, surgery gets in there and slices open the tendon sheath, so it's not so constrictive on the tendon. But that's just a symptom. That's not the CAUSE of Tenosynovitis. Which is my big complaint with surgery....it only goes after the symptom. And by definition, that doesn't fix the source of the problem. So, from what you describe, it's safe to say you have a long term Process of Inflammation all over your body, from many different sources, which eventually becomes a system ecology of inflammation process and side effect. As you have been experiencing, it's all downhill from there. 1. Make sure you have plenty of Magnesium in you. Magnesium for Tendonitis 2. Omega 3 fats for their anti-inflammatory effect, and other health benefits. 3. Make sure your Vitamin D3 level is between 50-180. 4. Finish every hot shower with cold. You'll get the systemic benefits of a daily ice dip, basically. 5. IceDip your forearms and hands, as described on the How To Reduce Inflammation page. Start with that. Give me updates. More questions, more answers. ---------------------- Please reply using the comment link below. Do not submit a new submission to answer/reply, it's too hard for me to find where it's supposed to go. And, comments have a 3,000 character limit so you may have to comment twice. -----------------------  Joshua Tucker, B.A., C.M.T. The Tendonitis Expert www.TendonitisExpert.com
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