Hand Injuries

[joeyd929]

Not sure if this is the best place for this thread but I had to pick one. Has anyone ever experienced any hand injuries and had to work through them or deal with this sort of thing?

If yes, how did you deal with it? I had a hand injurie one time and thank God my band had a two week break. I ended up in this fight and both ring and middle fingers on my left (fretting hand) hand were bent sideways when I was knocked to thr ground. Right at the second joint behind the nail.

Both fingers were totally stiff and swolen, and would not bend for about 8 days and I probably did some damage by playing the gig two weeks later. There was quite a bit of pain in the finger joints when I played, especially when doing anything that required sliding the hand.

It has been 21 years since the injury and I have recovered 98%, but my middle finger still gets sore if I do a partial bar chord and bend it at the tip sometimes. But for the most part it has been OK. My ring finger has had no symptoms other than it gets sore if I bend strings alot.

[Meqz]

Well, I had my right hand little finger knuckle broken. Was in a Karate exam, I broke the knuckle and the finger inmediatly moved to a strange place, like above the hand, as if the finger came out from the back of the hand.

Well, I was VERY luck that it happened to the picking hand and specially to the little finger, however, a couple of months ago I started playing tapping that inolves the 8 fingers. At first I had a strange feeling with it, and thought that it was a techinque I couldn't ever play. However, after some thoughts about it, I said to myself that it was only psychological (it's a hard techinque + the finger). So I just sit down, played and forgot about that. Now I can play that techinque as if nothing had happened to my finger.

I'm pretty sure that most of the injuries we have, we don't recover completely because we set obstacles in our minds. We think we can't and won't be able to make it. Well, my advice to you is forget about the injuries, completely forget, and things will take another course.

-Meqz

[joeyd929]

Jeff Watson from Nightranger used to do this two hand 8 finger tapping thing. I would be interested to hear some of your work, do you have a web site with any samples?

[Meqz]

I haven't recorded anything using that technique, however, if you really wanna learn, I suggest you start by listening Satriani's Midnight, and then, search for this guy, Kiko Loureiro, has a very interesting intro in the song Heros of Sand.

If you interested send me a pm with your email and I'll sent you a couple of .pdf to work this techinque.

-Meqz

[forgottenking2]

I injured my hand reciently. It was a traumatic/RSI injury (it actually happened in two spots on my left hand/arm). I did what everyone hates to do. I stopped playing (and I was in school for music) for a while and worked on other stuff. It's taken about 9 months and it still bothers me every once in a while if I practice/play too much. I am still being careful about it. The main thing is follow the rule of thumb: if it hurts, stop. I have been able to build up my stamina quite a bit and I can play through a 4 hour practice session without much trouble (this is all I've had time to do in one stretch). Bends and vibrato are still somewhat troublesome (I guess the fact that there is more forearm involved makes the injured parts work) and my technique is about 90% there (I can do all but the stuff that was "pushing the limit" before). I think a couple more months and I'll be fine.

My advice: Take a break and ease your way back in. I started playing 15 minute sessions and I built up from there. You should not feel ANY pain while playing. If you do, you are probably making it worse.

Take it easy and good luck.

Oh, I did go to the doctor and had my hand checked and what not, they gave me one steroid shot which helped. I would definitely recommend going to a doctor if you haven't done so already.

I hope this helps.

-Jorge

[CaptainCaveman]

I recently started to feel pain in my hands when I played, which forced me to revise my playing style.

Now, I wear my guitar higher, I warm up for twice as long and stretch out afterwards.
I have also started to take better care of my hands, massaging them, and Contrast-bathing them.

All this has not only stopped the pain, but it has also improved my chops tremendously

[joeyd929]

I recently started to feel pain in my hands when I played, which forced me to revise my playing style.

Now, I wear my guitar higher, I warm up for twice as long and stretch out afterwards.
I have also started to take better care of my hands, massaging them, and Contrast-bathing them.

All this has not only stopped the pain, but it has also improved my chops tremendously

I also have some sort of tendonitis, which actually bothers me more than my hand injury ever has. What happens is my hand goes into this sort of atrophy and all my fingers sort of "clam up". When I try and grap a chord or scale, everything feels like when you hand is really cold, it just....moves....slow..

I have come to terms with this. To handle it, I practice......really......slow......when......it.. ....acts......up.

Then, I will take a solid day or 2 off every now and then. It's amazing, between slowing down and resting my hands, my playing has actually improved at least 50 percent at this point.

I also type around 60-70 words per minute so that keeps my hands moving, gotta be careful with that....