Playing wth chronic injuries?

[prsplayer86]

Been dealing with left wrist pain the last year or so. Have had several test on it and it's not carpel tunnel or nerve damage. Ultrasound revealed a big marble sized cyst in the middle of the wrist. My doc gave me a cortisone shot and burst the cyst about a month ago. Been feeling better. Had been a struggle doing big EVH/Lynch type stretches. Also had lower back surgery about a year ago for a herniated disc and sciatica pain. I'm very careful loading and unloading my gear these days. I always ask for help with my cabs now.

Had a cyst on my left wrist pop up twice now. A queue-ball and a phone book smacked them out of the picture... once again whiskey was administered liberally!

 

[Bishop5150]

Had a cyst on my left wrist pop up twice now. A queue-ball and a phone book smacked them out of the picture... once again whiskey was administered liberally!

Amen to that brother. The Dr. said only fluids.

 

[datriani]

Here's the deal. Most people don't believe me when I say this, because either you're in the HMO rabbit hole already, or looking down into the Hole. What I mean is, it's easy to get brainwashed by your doctor into thinking you have arthritis and there's no cure........

........Anyhow, I don't even know if I answered the original question, but hope some of this helps somebody. Don't just give into the damn doctors and get sucked down the HMO rabbit hole. There's no better time in history to educate yourself and take matters into your own hands whenever possible. Plus, the success of fixing an ailment yourself is liberating and inspiring.

I believe this to be true. About a year ago I shifted from practicing about 30 minutes a week to 3 hours a day. I've been playing for about 28 years and have been in a band on/off for most of the time and I haven't had to practice too much to keep my chops up but in the last year really wanted to beef up my playing and pursue a career as a studio guitarist. In Feb I had a shooting pain up my left forearm at a gig and from there it was down hill for the next few months. I took time off thinking that it need to heal or recover from too much practicing and overall strain on the muscle and ligaments. I spoke with doctors and they all said they same thing, rest and if that doesn't work they'd conduct test and prescribe meds.

I decided to take a different route, I changed my diet, incorporated some stretching exercises and started wearing the Tommie Copper stuff. For my diet, I started taking a ton of Vitamin D which helps with muscle and bone maintenance/development and I cut out as much salt from my diet as possible. Salt is a huge factor in joint issues. I was over in London for about a year and the food there is really bland because they don't use salt or other spices in their food but after some time, I noticed that I felt healthier and my joints felt looser. In the last year, I've been learning to cook and I don't use salt in my food but I do use other stuff like Tabasco or pepper or whatever.

For exercises, I would do some basic stretches before and after playing just to loosen up the muscles and joints. There are ton of exercises online but I think stretching is pretty intuitive, figure out what works for you. Regarding the Tommie Copper stuff, I was skeptical but every athlete I spoke with who tried it, swears by and so I gave it a shoot. It might be a placebo effect but in conjunction with the other 2 changes, it all seemed to work and I'm back to playing for extended periods of time. I would wear that TC compression stuff (glove and arm/elbow) at night while sleeping and I think it helps circulates the blood in that area which has a healing effect.

Altogether, this was an inexpensive solution for what I think would have cost me a fortune with doctors, prescription meds and tests to figure out what was wrong. The way I figure, playing guitar is like a "sport" because it takes a lot of coordination, hand strength and constant work/practice to be good so why not do what top sports athletes do which is control your diet, stretch before and after and wear recovery gear?