Finger joint swelling, advice please

General Music Discussion
#29

The way you sleep may also be a contributing factor. For a good while I was suffering with pinched nerves in my neck and elbow which came with awful sore and stiff stiff hands in the morning. I started to notice I was waking up a few times in the night with dead arm/hand where I had been putting my hands above my head when I sleep. Its hard to stop, but I found wearing a wrist strap when I slept extremely helpful as for some reason it stopped me sleeping in weird positions.

I’m not saying the straps will help you specifically, but if your arms and hands are not getting recovery time at sleep, then its going to be hard to fix them.

#30

Hi guys thanks for the advice it’s much appreciated.

To answer your questions:

I am a software engineer, but I’m out of work currently so I’m not really doing any intensive keyboard work, not since I started playing guitar again anyway. I did have problems before with my right hand and wrist where I was using the mouse a lot and i even had weird calasses and bumps but they’ve gone after I stopped working.

I don’t really want to stop playing guitar as I’ve rediscovered my passion for it during the past 6 months or so.

I’ll try and do some of this lying on my back and raising arms in the air thing you mentioned. I do get a very stiff neck in the morning I expect that could help it.

Well you might be onto something there, I was thinking the same thing. I do have a bad habit of falling asleep watching TV and I do also find that I have a stiff neck in the morning and sometimes numbness in my feet and arms if I’ve been in the same position all night.

This is a bad habit that I’ve had for a long time, years maybe, but the finger joint pain and stiffness only came after I started playing hard again so I didn’t think that my sleeping position was a cause. I’ll try and be more aware of that now and see if I can force myself to sleep in a better position.

What I’m thinking is that I need to do a few things to remedy the problem or help to improve it:

  • Eat healthier. Goes without saying but we can’t expect our bodies to continue working perfectly if we don’t give them the right nutrients.
  • Take nutritional and vitamin supplements. I’ve started taking Krill Oil, Curcumin and I was already taking magnesium and vitamin D3.
  • Try and decist from playing at all until my fingers feel better. That’s hard.
  • If I am going to play, make sure I spend some time to do some stretches and some gentle warmups.
  • Bathe my hand in hot and cold water in the morning when it’s worst.
  • If I do play be careful and dont use my pinky or do any stretches and very fast movements and avoid bending. This is achievable if I really concentrate but sometimes I’ll find myself just going off on a tangent and trying to play crazy Vai stuff without thinking about it.
  • Get out of my bad sleeping position habit.

What I have found is that if I limit myself to simple pentatonic shapes just using my index and ring finger it’s fine, and I can still work on my picking technique using those patterns. It is limiting but it’s better than nothing ! It’s just so hard to stop myself from doing any of the things I mentioned above sometimes.

Of course when I’m doing bends or stretching I do get the pain, at least for a the first few times so that’s a good alert or alarm but…I’ve got quite good at playing through the pain as well. I just don’t want to stop playing completely it would be hard.

I did manage to decist from playing today and everyone says I should stop playing for a month to let my joints get better. That’s what I’m trying to do but it’s not going very well.

#31

Dude perfect time to really analyze your favorite players. Sit back, slow that speed way back, learn it all slowed way up for a month while it all heals. But this might put fuel in the fire and tempt you to speed things up. :sweat_smile:

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#32

Just a quick update on this in case someone else has the same problem and is interested. My fingers are still bad but not as bad as before I think.

I put this down to 4 things, so it’s not a very scientific result but I suspect they all are playing their part:

  1. Krill oil. Expensive and smells gross but I’ve been taking 1000 mg a day for 3 weeks.
  2. Curcumin. Taking this every day as well for 3 or 4 weeks.
  3. Eating more fresh veg and drinking a lot more water and orange juice to stay well hydrated.
  4. Adjusting my sleeping position, coincidentally I now get a similar problem in my left knee and I’m sure it’s because of it being in a bent position during sleep.

Now a lot of people told me to stop playing until it was better, and if any of you have seen I’ve been active on this forum and not really done that at all, it was too hard, I tried, I’ve just got no will power I guess :slight_smile:

So the improvement has not been influenced by playing time, although I have taken 2 or 3 days off now and then to try the abstinence thing, but past week I’ve been playing hard every day and it’s really only this week I’ve felt the improvement.

So good results so far but the joints are still swollen every morning, just not as bad it seems.

Thanks to everyone that gave advice and I’ll keep you posted.

Edit: I forgot to mention as well that I’ve been doing arm and back stretches almost every day and giving my hand hot and cold baths when I remember, so that adds to the complication of what is working or not.

I guess I could do a logical scientific experiment and try one thing at a time month by month but I don’t think Ive got the will power for that. I’m just throwing everything at it and something seems to be working.

#33

Honestly, and it may seem a bit overly cautious, but it never hurts to schedule a visit with your pcp to rule out any more serious underlying causes. I know that taking a naturopathic road can seem very attractive, but what may seem like mild edema in the hands, or stiffness in the joints can be indicative of a number of things, some very serious, some not, and the sooner you get a jump on them if it does turn out to be more serious, the better. Just my .02.

#34

Yeh you’re right I’ve got an appointment booked with my doctor next week, it just took a while to come around because they rightly don’t see it as a priority serious problem, so I had to wait for the next free general appointment which are booked up weeks in advance currently.

I’ll update on the diagnosis for what it’s worth.

#35

Good man! And honestly it’s likely nothing serious unless you have a family history of heart or kidney issues, but it never hurts to go in, especially for something that seems to be more chronic at this point and without direct causation, rather than an acute occurrence.

#36

Honestly I would change your strings to 8s or 9s. I was having some issues with pain in the ring finger of my left hand and I switched to 8s a few months ago and I’ve been pain free ever since. They don’t sound as fat, but they make guitar playing so much easier that it’s worth the trade off.

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#37

I’m definitely doing that @aliendough, thanks, I’m on hybrids currently because I was so used to heavy bottom skinny tops but I will go to standard 9s and then maybe to 8s.

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#38

Sounds like you are on the right track. These issues require persistence - the body doesn’t heal in a day (week, etc). The body is a complex system and therefore more often than not requires a complex treatment - very few health issues respond to a single treatment but instead require a collaborative and synergistic blend of interventions . As in music the whole is greater then the sum of the parts (think of every truly brilliant band on the planet - Pink Floyd comes to mind first for me).

#39

Hi @fenrirokie,

yes, my hand and fingers do seem better. I am refraining from playing for a few days a week to try and help things too, but in general my fingers feel stronger and not so swollen, so many thanks for your advice.

The doctor didn’t help much, he said I am doing the right things and it’s likely early Osteoarthritis so I have to make sure I keep doing the right things to prevent it from getting worse. I’m a little young to get it he says, but it’s likely due to my unhealthy lifestyle over the years. The main thing is to put the right things into my mouth, the right food and the vitamins, krill oil and curcumin and magnesium pills I take every day now.

#40

That’s a bummer. Did he do any imaging, or just suspect it?

#41

He’s just suspecting, but said if it gets worse then I have to go for a scan, but also, I do have a heart problem as well so I have to go in to hospital for a check up on that soon and I might try and get the scan while there under the guise of checking it’s not related to the heart problem, if that makes sense.

#42

It could be! Many different heart related issues or co-morbidites like good ol’ betes can be a catalyst too.

#43

Try implementing this when warming up, helps me with fretting tension and speed:

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#44

Cool, thanks, this is great, I’ll try it for sure. I was thinking I must be putting too much pressure on my fingers and I know I don’t move them very efficiently, so this could help.

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#45

Something to consider, at least for a while until symptoms resolve, is to ditch legato and just do picked notes. This might help fretting hand pain and overall tension.

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#46

Yeh, that’s an idea, but will be difficult when I am constantly trying to play Vai stuff. I could try it though, just concentrate on the picking for a month. I could also work on my Vai two finger tapping without having to do much left hand legato.

#47

You could consider it a challenge to see how “Vai sounding” you can be without legato.

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#48

I apply Kiko’s minimal effort approach to any type of a lick, and usually focus primarily on practicing legato with that approach - the focus is on the economy of movement, not the sound.
Another video which was very useful to me in that regard was this legato lesson by Tom Quayle:

What I do in the first part of my typical practice routine is apply Tom’s legato tips to Kiko’s minimal effort approach without a metronome at a super slow tempo just to warm up my fretting hand.

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