Wrist/Hand problems

[Travis]

Carpal Tunnel, Tendinitis, Repetitive Strain Injury, anything that gives you trouble or pain...post your experiences, remedies or whatever here.

A little over three weeks ago, I did a recording session playing bass for a few friends of mine. It was pretty intense and I pushed myself pretty hard...ever since, I've been noticing slight pain in both wrists, especially my right one. While it is very minor, it hasn't gone away at all.

Upon realizing this, I started researching and treating it more seriously. I bought a wrist brace, have been icing it every few hours for 10 minutes, taking 800mg of ibuprofen every 8 hours, and doing various wrist/hand stretches every few hours. Haven't touched an instrument in 3 days now.

Figured this would be a good place to post a thread since Ron had a whole slew of hand problems back in the day. It'd be interesting to hear his experiences, and how he got through it...but anyone and everyone feel free to post!

 

[Jason Washburn]

Is that you playing on your Avatar picture.......if so, my own wrist are hurting just by looking at it. Joke aside, I used to play just like that (I'm left handed) until both my wrists began to hurt. Sometimes the pain hurt so much that it would wake me up in the middle of the night. A real bad nagging pain that seemed to follow the beat of my heart pumping the blood. To much inflammation in my wrists.

So i started to modify my playing technique, no more wrist bending. Just bring your bass neck a little bit higher and put your elbows a little bit more far away from your body (it should now put a little bit more pressure on your shoulder but not your wrists.

I know you will probably not like that.......but maybe pratice a little bit less or not at all, until the pain goes away. DON'T FORGET THE ICE PACK TOO.

If you can, check if it's not genetic. As for me, my mom, Dad and a couples of oncles all have this Carpal Tunnel syndrome. Some of them went under the knife at the hospital because of it. No more pain for them, but less power from their hands.

 

[Travis]

^Yeah, good advice about the positioning, but I think I'm doing a pretty decent job with it...for example, I play classical style rather than sidesaddle when sitting (ie, bass/guitar between the legs rather than on the picking hand's leg). I think my culprit was simply pushing myself too hard during a single very intense session; even though my hands and wrists were very tired, I kept playing for a few hours.