Yeah, this sucks but its true… you can hurt yourself playing guitar, but don’t get discouraged by this! We are here to help you avoid this problems.
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Most guitarists don’t know about this diseases and that can carry serious consequences… at the point you could never play guitar again, and that would REALLY suck!
What causes the guitar playing diseases?
Guitar playing diseases happen when you hurt yourself by playing with a wrong technique, you won’t feel anything in the beginning but if you keep hurting yourself for a long time you’ll start having problems and if you don’t correct your technique and keep hurting yourself even more then you’ll have a guitar playing disease.
If something hurts when you’re playing, stop playing and rest a while.
The “if it doesn’t hurt it doesn’t work” rule doesn’t apply here… if you’re playing the right way there will be no pain, reevaluate your technique and look for what are you doing wrong, ask your guitar teacher if there’s something wrong with your technique.
What to do?
First of all you have to know about this diseases and go see a doctor if you have any symptom, if you go see a doctor at time most of the guitar playing diseases are easy to cure and then you’ll be able to play a lot again!
Which are this diseases?
Most guitar player (50-70%) suffer or have suffered at least one of this diseases, and most of this guitarists don’t even know about that.
Here’s a list of the most common guitar playing diseases.
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: This disease affects the tendons that give flexibility to your fingers. The pain starts in the palm of your hand and it get worse at night, this disease can even wake you up in the middle of the night and it hurts a lot!
Tennis Elbow: Its a degenerative condition where the outer part of the elbow becomes sore and tender. Its a common disease between tennis and guitar players, the symptoms are:
- Pain on the outer part of elbow (lateral epicondyle).
- Point tenderness over the lateral epicondyle–a prominent part of the bone on the outside of the elbow.
- Gripping and movements of the wrist hurt, especially wrist extension and lifting movements.
- Activities that uses the muscles that extend the wrist (e.g. pouring a pitcher or gallon of milk, lifting with the palm down) are characteristically painful.
- Morning stiffness
Tendonitis or Tendinitis: Tendinitis is an inflammation, irritation, and swelling of a tendon, which is the fibrous structure that joins muscle to bone. In many cases, tendinosis (tendon degeneration) is also present.
The symptoms are:
- Pain and tenderness along a tendon
- Pain is worse with movement or activity
- Pain at night
So as we said before, if you present one of this symtoms go and see a doctor!
Keep your fingers, hand and tendons in great condition so you can still playing and having fun with your guitar!
If you have been through one of this diseases or if this article have helped you leave a comment and let us know about you.
Hi, i’m Guillermo Pareja and i will be the “Riff Church” admin.