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anyone dealing with carpal tunnel???

kredd	Date: March 30, 2004 @ 12:54 PM i sit at computer for 40 hrs a week clicking a friggin mouse and i'm at to the point where i can barely make it through an 8 song set or hold a pick b/c my right hand - mostly my thumb - loses so much strength. i've been playing metal for 14 years and it just came out of nowhere. anyone else have a prob like this? any advice? besides stopping playing??
tossom	Date: March 30, 2004 @ 1:16 PM Not quite the same, but I once had tendonitis that got so severe I ended up with a lump on the tendon running from the middle finger of my left hand - the result was 10 weeks of no playing and being unable to make a fist Came out of nowhere for me too, made the mistake of trying to play through it to end up with and just ended up making things worse. The first change I made was switching from heavy (I used to use 11-56) to light (10-4 strings - it made a bit of a difference. I've spent the last three years experimenting with various ways to help ease the pain and loss of strength and the best so far has been a magnetic wristband called a "bioflow". Check it out, seriously! Here's their website address: http://www.simplymagnetic.com/ Hope your hand improves soon, I know what a pain in the arse it can be.
kredd	Date: March 30, 2004 @ 2:44 PM cool, thanks for the link. will def check it out.
sqrlcub	Date: March 30, 2004 @ 2:51 PM In college a lot of my friends developed Carpal Tunnel. The ones that did had very odd right hand technique. I can bet almost anything that when you are picking your guitar that you bend your hand backwards (ie if your palm is face down and your forearm is flat against something you arch your palm back) a little when strumming and picking. This is very common in all guitar playing and what typically leads to Carpal Tunnel. I am not a doctor just a pretty experienced guitarist and former teacher. The jazz guitarists who used picks would develop carpal tunnel there, and the classical ones who didn't tended to get it more in their pinkies and ring fingers. Anyway, the way to remedy it over the long term is to change your right hand technique. You want to keep your wrist as straight as possible when playing. (This applies to typing too.) However, if you must bend it, bending it down (palm rotates towards the guitar rather than away) is better as it uses the muscles underneath which are much stronger than the ones on top. At least right now it is in the early stage. If you let it go everytime you do something it will feel like thousands of pinpricks shooting through your hand. I have no information on the magnetic enterprise thing. Some people swear by it (see above). Eventhough I think the people at skepdic.com live up to the Dick part of their domain name, I'd generally agree with them on this issue. http://www.skepdic.com/magnetic.html
Swiviel	Date: March 30, 2004 @ 3:32 PM I work at a pc about 40 hours a week and I'm having some problems also. I will check out the link.
kredd	Date: March 30, 2004 @ 3:40 PM yeah, i've messed around with adjusting how hi or lo my guitar sits when i play but never thot about my picking technique. but it more than just my job, its work-related to so i've some other things to adjust too! "(ie if your palm is face down and your forearm is flat against something you arch your palm back)" question referring to arching your palm back...how do you NOT arch your palm back when holding a pick? i was just trying to evaluate my technique based on your example and wasn't sure what you meant. thanks for all the info...
tossom	Date: March 30, 2004 @ 3:55 PM I was a complete and utter skeptic about the whole magnet thing too until I tried it. Well, I was forced into it by my mum and girlfriend!
sqrlcub	Date: March 30, 2004 @ 4:12 PM It's not too hard, do you rest your palm or part of your hand on the instrument's body? If so, try more free picking. Pay as much attention as you can to your wrist while playing. The more you bend it and move it, the more problems you will potentially face. Let's see if I can find a picture of what I am talking about. http://www.bsu.edu/web/jcflowers1/rlo/grip4.jpg He is not playing a guitar but his hands are an exagerated form of what I am talking about. His right hand bends down, his left hand bends back. A simple test, bend your hand back as far as you can and make a fist, it probably hurts a little and you can't close it real tight. Now do the same while your hand is bent down, it is a lot easier to make a fist and a tight one and it shouldn't hurt. Another two pictures: http://wcats.com/SLT/SLT0010bTN.jpg Good form that should work on the guitar. Notice how the wrist slightly bends down. If you can grip a pick basically like that (or even with your wrist straighter) it will slowly ease the pain. I had a very hard ass teacher guitar teacher who threatened to fail me if I didn't do it (well that and for me to stop biting my nails). It was enough incentive at the time. Scott Tennant in "Pumping Nylon" spent some time on this as well. It is geared towards classical players but it should be pretty accessible to electric players as well. http://www.danmacleod.com/Ergo%20for%20You/Principles%20Images/p12_grip_bad.jpg Bad form that will cause tendonitis and carpal tunnel. Notice how the wrist bends back.
Apertome	Date: March 30, 2004 @ 5:16 PM I'm not a guitarist, but in terms of the mouse, I have found that a trackball reduces strain significantly. I also use a "natural" (split) keyboard. I was having problems before I made these changes, but since then I have had little trouble.
kredd	Date: March 30, 2004 @ 5:24 PM dang, thanks for the in-depth info. from what you are saying i think my form is ok(knock on wood) here is the best pic i could find of me picking - http://www.absenceoftheuseless.com/pic.asp my hand pretty much rests on the bridge(for palm muting and with a lot of fast down picking - good ol' metal) or i'm strumming. as for the test of bending my hand, doesn't really hurt and i can close it tight. i'm either in denial or just really early stages. but the pain doesn't really kick until the 3 or 4th song and at the office its mostly just discomfort and soreness than it is real pain. i'll probably just have to go get it looked at...
sqrlcub	Date: March 30, 2004 @ 5:43 PM Damn you for making me open Internet Explorer (Mozilla dork) .Just kidding. I just don't like using it. It looks pretty straight to me. The above still can apply. When I was still playing a lot of electric guitar I would often rest my upper arm on the body which would in turn cause it to go to "sleep" and give a lot of similar to carpal tunnel symptoms but not actually carpal tunnel. My best friend in college got carpal tunnel at the end of the semester. His was characterized more by his hand going numb and then cramping and hurting as he continued to play. The above, where you rest your arm bit, makes your hand go numb but didn't really ever make it hurt. CT is my worst fear as a guitarist so I would definately get it checked out rather than have some mostly anonomous webdork semi-diagnose it online.
pog	Date: March 30, 2004 @ 7:06 PM I've had issues with r.s.i before... it got to a point where the doctor told me to stop playing for 1 month or risk permenant damage. It's like trying to stop blinking for a month ! Reluctantly, I let my wrists heal, and researched it some more. I found that it's extremely important to warm up your wrists and hands before playing anything fast. Massage and rub the muscles, much like a baseballer does.. then start off with some slow finger exercises... no if's or but's. If you feel excessive tightness, and I'm not talking about pushing the pain barrier, it goes far beyond that... it's usually when you catch yourself holding chords (often live) with the pressure of your arm, pulling your exhausted fingers onto the frets, and even your arm feels like it's going to give out... this is not healthy, though sometimes required to finish the set/songlist. If you get to this point... rest a few days and allow yourself to heal.
victorsskull	Date: March 30, 2004 @ 7:36 PM I have had a few issues but nothin serious
rnowmusic	Date: March 31, 2004 @ 5:09 AM One of our band members had a severe case also last year---it's not fun. His went from his wrist up his arm to his shoulder and down his back----they wanted to operate. He wanted to try everything else but. And he fought it continually through exercise and massage---it's a constant battle. But he's improved 100%. Went from severe pain to almost no pain at all. But he's always movin'. Doesn't do one thing longer than he has to. This is hard, of course. But he's always saying to "go against it"
DevonPowell	Date: April 2, 2004 @ 4:39 PM Massage Therapists can also be very helpful with CTS. That's my day-job (that I refuse to quit). If you want help locating someone in your area, go to http://www.amtamassage.org and run a therapist search. Sorry about that in any case...definitely a problem for a lot of people and not one guitarists need!