tendonitis questions for those who've gone through it.

[HolmeBass]

I had lateral epicondalitis (tennis elbow) in plucking arm very bad, and later on, more mildly in my fretting arm.

Long, slow, quiet warmups before playing, and ice after really help. For my plucking hand it got so bad I went to a good osteopath and he helped get it resolved.

Hydrocortisone shot to elbow made it better, but it came back in 4 months. Ice and warm ups and massage by the osteopath fixed it. I still have flare-ups which I treat with ice and careful slow warmups.

 

[nonohmic]

Hi All,

I'm curious if players that have dealt with tendonitis have had it mostly in the fretting hand, mostly in the plucking hand, or both?

Also has a change in technique been able to alleviate any of the issues?

Thanks.

Elbow or hand or what? Either way you need to do antagonist exercises.

If it's in the elbow, grab a 10-15lb dumbell and do concentric and/or eccentric curls/lowers depending on if it's on the inside or the outside of the elbow. Build up the opposing muscle. Also look into rice bucket exercises.

These cured my tendonitis. But everyone is different.

 

[mapleglo]

Tendonitis in both wrists. I stopped playing for about a year, and it felt a little better, so I started playing again. I'm just powering through the pain at this point. My doctor told me that there's nothing they can do as a permanent fix.

 

[Pings Bass]

When I was first starting out 40-odd years ago I had some tendinitis in my fretting hand. I soon learned proper technique and it hasn't bothered me since.

A well setup bass guitar needs very little pressure to fret (compared to an upright), and there is no reason you should injure yourself playing it. If you don't have a teacher who can demonstrate proper ergonomics, consult Dr YouTube.

Meanwhile take a break to avoid further injury.

 

[BaltBass5]

Had tennis and golf elbow in my fretting arm elbow and it was excruciating. Docs said rest is the only thing to fix it. Obviously, that didn’t work as an option so I played through it and iced regularly…eventually it went away.

 

[Swamp_Ronin]

Elbow or hand or what? Either way you need to do antagonist exercises.

If it's in the elbow, grab a 10-15lb dumbell and do concentric and/or eccentric curls/lowers depending on if it's on the inside or the outside of the elbow. Build up the opposing muscle. Also look into rice bucket exercises.

These cured my tendonitis. But everyone is different.

This is the way.

Eccentric loading changed the game. This is speaking in regard to tennis elbow.

Cortisone will provide relief, but constantly shutting down acute inflammatory (healing) response is no path to recovery.

I see a couple of people mentioning diet, but that’s the new politics. Worth taking the journey and making up your own mind.

We didn’t evolve to click a mouse, draw and paint, or play a bass. Do these things for a long enough duration, and you’re gonna get hardware failure.