tendonitis

[bkcahill]

I was diagnosed with tendonitis in my left arm (brachial radialis) several months ago and was instructed to stop playing guitar. I went through many physical therapy sessions including multiple iontophoresis procedures to deliver anti inflammatory substances to the muscle. Rest, ice, Advil & PT...nothing worked. A week ago I received a cortisone shot and that worked 100%. I am now allowed to practice 5 - 10 minutes a day...I've never wanted to practice guitar this bad. Life is good!

[Trystramys]

That is great news!

I hope you'll be allowed to play even longer in the future; from 10 mins to 15 mins to 20 mins to 30 mins and so on...

[Tomzooki]

Good news!!

And coming back gradually to your activities is part of the rehabilitation. Now it is the time to analyse your technique and find the cause of the tendonitis. Often it takes radical situations, as your tendonitis, to oblige us to reconsider our technique and achieve a great improvement in our playing. With time you may find that your bad tendonitis was in some way a gift

[Kent]

Good news!!

And coming back gradually to your activities is part of the rehabilitation. Now it is the time to analyse your technique and find the cause of the tendonitis. Often it takes radical situations, as your tendonitis, to oblige us to reconsider our technique and achieve a great improvement in our playing. With time you may find that your bad tendonitis was in some way a gift

I would say this is pretty good advice!

[Luis_Br]

The advice is really important. The cortisone will relief the pain and help recovering, but if you don't work on the cause, the problem may get worse later...

[Rincewind]

I've had awful tendonitis issues although in a different part of the left arm (De Quervain syndrome). 2 cortisone shots gave me relief, each for about 6 months but an operation now seems to have solved it. I'm not suggesting it will solve your issue but, like you, I desperately didn't want to give up playing. I hope you find a solution to your problem.

[malc laney]

on another thread, i've got tenosynovitis, and while i know i play a lot of guitar, i'm beginning to think the computer keyboard hasn't helped especilly playing "freecell".
my sister-in-law also has a shoulder problem which seems to have started after she had a rush of work for an e3xtended period.
i've cut down on silly games and have bought a small guitar with less tense strings and less stretching, so i can do a bit of playing and regain confidence.
bonne chance!

[abhinav chhetri]

Good thing i got to know a lot about tendonitis from this thread ...hope you recover soon and pray that no guitarist has to suffer with tendonitis.

[motheproe]

I'm a classical guitar diploma teacher and I have suffered from tendonitis in the back of my left hand for nearly 2 years destroying my performances.

I want to report that I have finally found the cure.

Along the way, I heard garbage from all idiots about one-off treatments, tablets, prolotherapy (wth is that?)poor technique etc.

I can tell you, that I visited hand surgeon in Wellington Hospital, GPs, Guitar performers at Royal acadamey but all failed and my technique is fine.

I did learn from the surgeon that Tendonitis is usually not an injury, it's inflammation due to over use and lack of sufficient oils and poor blood flow to tendons- like a car engine without enough oils. Engines fine but it sure will be cranky without oil.

Treatment? Cortesone is fine for a temp solution but I fail to see the logic in a problem caused by extended momentum and re-use, being solved by a one-off injection - YES I had 2 myself, helped for 3 months but then it came back.

Answer: Icing helps as it compresses the tendon and forces in new blood flow (see online tendonitis expert for more on this - google it) but crucially - check out TIGER BALM or other chinese oil balms such as wood lock. Before you comment - I have no connection to it financially whatsoever.

I'm amazed and over the moon now.

It's an oil producing heat balm - PERFECT for tendonitis which needs the heat to encourage blood flow and oils to solve the friction problem.

All I can say is I have been cured. I was even able to play when I started using the balm and it still started to reduce the inflammation until it left me completely.

Trust me when I say this - it's amazing stuff and check out other users on-line it as it really works.

My gosh I sound like those marketing posts.

So advice is Ice and balm - I do this 2-3 times a day and indefinitely (whilst you are playing of course)

I for one am playing pain free.


Good luck all.

[GeoffB]

Hi motheproe, welcome to the forum. Could I invite you to introduce yourself here?

Geoff

[Simon Booton-Mander]

When I got my first CG about 6 years ago (Tanglewood student guitar) I had really bad tendonitis in my left arm and carpel tunnel in my left hand. I did not think about any treatment, instead I changed guitar (Lamaq C54) and never had the problem again until I decided to start playing again after a year break (about 3 months ago).

My father in law gave me his CG, he had not played it for years and thought it would save me some money. I though OK, it is an alright CG, it has a solid top and not a bad tone. After only a day of playing I started to get the carpel tunnel again, but I thought right, this is down to having not played for a long time, I will give it a while.

After only one week not only was the carpel tunnel back, so was the tendonitis.
I emailed the guy I sold my Lamaq to and asked him to measure the depth of the neck from fingerboard to the back where the thumb rests, which he kindly did, which after some research made me settle on the Admira Soledad, which was the best match for my budget.
I have had it about 2 months now, and all the problems have gone away again.

The feature that both the Tanglewood and the CG my father in law gave me was that they both have shallow necks, where as the Lamaq and the Soledad both have deeper necks, we are only talking 3 maybe 4mm here, but the difference was stark.

If anyone is starting to get either carpel tunnel or tendonitis, or both, it is worth considering a change of CG to a neck profile that is different, it is at least a less drastic option than shots and ops, if it works good, if not, at least you have eliminated one possible cause.

[Aurore]

I did learn from the surgeon that Tendonitis is usually not an injury, it's inflammation

I

I know this is an older post but I was looking through the forum since I now have lateral epicondylitis or tennis elbow (lateral elbow pain syndrome is a more accurate name) and after being in pain for weeks finally started treatments. The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety have a really good page on this.

Nice to see it is possible to recover.

I haven't really been able to play without feeling pain and I was told today absolutely no guitar playing for now, well they don't know about Giuliani's arpeggios , but since I started playing this is the first time I really haven't played and it drives me nuts.

Oh, no need to tell me about posture at least while playing guitar, did this at work, kind of weird, didn't feel a thing, but the next day I could barely move the arm. Recently got given the same task and I modified how I did it.

[wayne g c reed]

Intrigued and encouraged to hear from Motheproe that tennis elbow may be curable. I shall certainly try his recommendation. I've had two cortisone shots so far and whilst they've brought me considerable relief, it is no long term answer. If motheproe is available to comment further on what is now quite an old post, I'd be delighted to know how he's getting on.
Thanks for the advice.

[Tomzooki]

Wayne, which of yours arms is plagued with tennis elbow?

And yes, it can be cured. It is a kind of tendonitis. But you will probably have to change things in your technique. In a way that wound is a good thing: it is probably caused by one or more technical flaws, and will force you to improve your technique. You may even get a better guitarist (technically...) than before

I guess the problem is in your wright elbow... No matter which elbow is wounded, you have to know that even if the pain is located in your elbow it is not caused by elbow movements, but wrist and hand movements.... The tendon in question is the attachment of the muscle responsible of the wrist movement which makes your hand lift... hard to explain... the angle between the back of your hand and your arm diminishes.... It is the movement you have to do to give gas on a motorcycle.

While practicing you could use a specialized band for it, you can find it in pharmacies. You have to put the cushion not on the tendon, but on the bulk of the muscle just before it. Its purpose is to reduce part of the muscle traction on the tendon. And of course analyse your movements to find which ones are responsible of the tendonitis and to modify your technique accordingly

[Mikkel]

I've had tendonitis in both arms for from January until July this year. What finally cured it was acupuncture. I tried all sorts of different treatments but nothing worked. After 3 weeks of acupuncture I could practice 2 hours a day and now (little over 2 months since then) I can easily practice for 6 hours without pain.
I still go for treatment once every 2 weeks or so, but now it's more to make absolutely sure there will be no fallback again and that the damage is completely gone.
I can highly recommend it since I tried everything modern medicine has to offer (with the exception of an operation) and nothing worked. Not to mention there is no danger or side effects to acupuncture treatment unlike many operations or injections.