Fretting fingers... Tendinitis? Nerve damage? What can I do?

[SpankyPants]

Lately, I've had the fire of God lit beneath me to play music. My life has become partitioned into 2 segments: 1. Music 2. Everything else. I wish I could play all day every day. I'd rather run scales and practice new techniques than do dirty things with a woman. I know, it doesn't make sense. I've just become so addicted to the feeling of music that I can't stop. It's literally all i want to do. I'm playing with 3 different groups right now, all of which are different styles. I can't put into words how much I love playing music. If I could, I'd stop eating, sleeping, school, work... Okay, so you get the idea.

However, I've been noticing over the past few months, as I play more and more, I've been getting a pain in my fingertips on my left (fretting) hand. It started off as a minor pain - something I ignored or wrote-off as temporary. Unfortunately, it's grown into a severe pain. All of my fretting fingers hurt, my index and middle so much that I have them in splints. It hurts to play. It hurts to type. It hurts to touch.

I had some x-rays done, hoping it was from hairline fractures. No such luck. After consulting with doctors, I'm being told that it's probably tendinitis or nerve damage. Here's the weird thing, though... My "joints" don't hurt. It's in the area where my fingernail meets the cuticle. My cuticles don't hurt (confusing, I know)... But if you drew a line around your finger that goes along your cuticle (and the end of your fingernail), that's where the pain is. If I squeeze my finger at the base of the fingernail, it hurts terribly, but if I squeeze the top joint of my fingers (1/4" away), it doesn't really hurt at all. The whole tip hurts, it feels almost like my fingers are being crushed under something heavy.

Strange thing is that sometimes it doesn't hurt at all. I'll wake up, and there will be absolutely no pain. Sometimes I wake up with such severe pain that I can't touch anything at all. Again, I have it in all of my fretting fingers on the left hand, and sometimes I think that my plucking fingers on my right hand are starting to hurt... but I pray that I'm just psyching myself out.

I figure I must have over-exerted myself between playing so often and using a terrible bass. My action is set pretty high because my instrument sucks... the neck has a pretty significant bow to it. It sounds alright. It gets the job done, and I used to pride myself in being able to open even the most stubborn of pickle jars (I don't even like pickles)... But now I'm afraid that I've permanently damaged my fingers.

It kills me that when all I want to do is play music... I'm being told not to. Over the past few months, I've had periods in which I don't play often. Since the pain got bad, I took a week and a half off, and I literally got depressed. I'm not talking "just sad." I mean, I have bi-polar disorder, and I literally started to get depressed. I'm going to have to adjust my medication if I stop playing just from withdrawal. I don't like to talk about having BPD. It's not something that ppl need to know about me. I hate it when ppl try to self-diagnose themselves with it. It looks like I'm making an excuse when I bring it up... There are a thousand reasons I avoid talking about it... But I honestly think that I risk seriously aggravating it if I stop playing bass.

So the situation seems pretty complicated - to me at least - and I'm not sure what to do. I can't afford an MRI, but maybe there's another way to find out? Can anyone lend any advice?

I intend on trying to rest my fingers as much as possible, but I don't know if I could stop all together. I might have to. And a new bass (with lower action... maybe a fretless) is definitely on the horizon. I use proper technique. My thumb is planted in the back of the neck, not the over-hanging monkey grip. I use floating-thumb right-hand technique and wear my bass relatively high (probably around my upper-stomach). I don't think that I play espcially hard. I pluck, slap, strum, and tap. I've only been playing 3.5 years, but I've been glued to my bass. I've been in several bands in several cities. I've played several gigs. I play constantly.

I'm not sure what this could be....

[wittynamehere]

I know you most likely don't want to hear this, but I would see another doctor, or a physical therapist, someone who deals with repetative motion injury. I gave myself pretty terrible tendonitis, and damage to my wrists spending too much time on the computer, in the end I had to give up gaming, and totally change how I worked, it still gives me problems, and since I have started playing bass, I find I simply am unable to play sitting down, within 3 minutes my elbows are on fire.

I would also consult whoever you see about your bipolar disorder, you can most likely self-medicate your hands in the short term by totally quitting playing until you get your fingers sorted out, but the bi-polar is nothing to mess around with, and if quitting playing is going to give you problems with that, that should be your first concern. If you have to give up bass for a few months that isn't going to do a huge disservice to how good you will be in 10 years, but your *mental* health is just as important as your cardiac health or any other major health issue, nothing to ignore, and nothing to be ashamed of (I know, it's easier to say than to accept, but believe me, I have been there).

I don't know enough about repetative motion injuries, to offer you any advice on what it could be, I was lucky in that the damage I had done was pretty obvious, and the cure was simple (although socially painful, as I gave up a lot of contact with a bunch of good friends online)

I hope things go well for you, I know it sucks, but don't mess around with it, find help before you do yourself some permanant damage. If you know anyone who has had any of that sort of injury ask who they saw and try to find out what kind of results they had. You don't have to stick to asking musicians, if you know anyone who works in the computer field, or at an assembly job, or a meatpacker, any job like that, chances are near 100% that they know someone who has had to seek medical help for a repetative motion injury.

Good luck man