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Share you guitar related injuries and cure
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rogeliocan
Posts: 811
Joined: Nov. 23 2009
From: Canada
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 Share you guitar related injuries an...
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I think it might be useful to share guitar related injuries we have had and how we cured them. Reason is, I have had 2, the first of which I wasted over 6 months without resolution because no one had a clue of what I had, it may have helped to have the experience of someone else who had it, at least it would have been a lead. In the end this 1st pain got resolved in 1 treatment!
So here goes. I have had 2 guitar related 'injuries'.
1st one, my right forearm was causing a lot of discomfort. After much money spent with different physios, chiros, and even 2 months without playing guitar to try to let it heal by itself, I finally got it resolved in one (yes one!) session with a chiro that did ART (Active Release Technique). He had seen the same thing with a violinist before. My problem was a nerve that was trapped/stuck between muscle tissue. With one session (5 minutes) using proper manipulation it was gone.
2nd injury. I am still fighting with this one.
During one year and a half I woke up every 2 hour because of shooting pain in my left hip area and thigh, I also felt it in my inner-front thigh going up stairs. I never felt the shooting except at night, starting about 4 hours after I got to bed.
This pain is now 99% gone now and I no long wake up at night. What remains is lower back discomfort.
What got rid of my hip and leg shooting pains was again ART and massages on the lower back muscles and all muscles-to-bone attachment points around the hips, leg-to-hip socket, and SI joint. The majority of these were inflamed and it took about 2 months to clear all of that. So, tight muscle, squeeze the nerves and eventually cause pain elsewhere.
So now I'm left with finishing up the lower back part, that is work in progress. For some reason, the muscles in the area of my lower spine work overtime and are always really tight (So tight that I use a baseball to massage them, yes it hurts). I am now getting short massages twice a week to focus on that area to try and break up those 'knots' (that have been there for at least 3 years).
One more thing I would like to share. For the past year I have been waking up in the morning feeling like a 70 year old (not that I know what it feels like) but my back was stiff and I had to stretch before getting up and it eventually felt better as I warmed up. That back discomfort actually prevented me from sleeping in in the morning, feeling discomfort and having to turn, stretch and move my back.
To my amazement, my chiro fixed this instantaneously. She put some tape (Kinesio tape) on my back. She had me sit and bend backward and applied the tape from above waist to mid back. With this on, every time I slouched, I could feel the tape pulling so I stood up straight again.
Well, not kidding, the next morning my back felt great and did not have this 70 year old feeling, that is wild since I have felt this for a while. So this pain was just caused by bad posture and over stretching my back muscles from too much slouching. Too me, this one is worth gold! Not having that sore back feeling in the morning.
Bottom line. All my problems were related to muscles trapping nerves, and all fixed with ART/massage.
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Date Nov. 14 2012 18:46:08
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turnermoran
Posts: 391
Joined: Feb. 6 2010
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RE: Share you guitar related injurie... (in reply to rogeliocan)
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right shoulder bursitis from playing old school style. PT directed me toward exercises where I put a thera-band around a doorknob and held each end in a hand, so that my upper arm was vertical with a 90º bend at the elbow. Then pull back with the focus being the pinch together the shoulder blades in the back are. It's like rowing exercises, kinda.
Basic idea was that my trapezoidal muscles in my upper back (along with other secondary muscle groups) were underdeveloped, and if they were strengthened, they would better support shoulder muscles.
Ultimately, I expanded the PT exercised to include wide arm pushups with focus on the upper back muscles.
It worked. Shoulder is fine now.
Herniated a disc in my lower back. Was advised to have micro disectomy surgery. I chose not to, and basically deal with the problem by staying fit, going to the gym and doing various excercise to keep my core strong. It is effective in managing the pain, but perhaps I should have had the surgery.
In short, I am personally of the opinion that to combat the long hours sitting and practicing, it is wise to stay fit and strong. Otherwise, should your body give out on you, you have a long uphill battle should the doctors suggest strength building. Do it now I say.
But that's just what works for me. Everybody is different
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Date Nov. 14 2012 19:43:10
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estebanana
Posts: 9278
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: Share you guitar related injurie... (in reply to rogeliocan)
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Doit,
Pretty soon you will meet a nice Japanese girl, settle down, stop being mad, have kids,drink beer and not care too much for punching mailboxes. 
But in the meantime, rage muther fukcer ...Rage!
And don't forget to change your strings.
______________________________________
I hurt my upper back doing carpentry work in 2001. Chiropractor fixed it it a jiffy.
Ten years later I aggravated the same part of my back by working too many hours and stressing over guitars while leaning over my bench, and the injury returned. Then I had to put a skylight in and I was drilling some holes and using a screw gun over my head and the recurring injury really got bad. Then in an effort to get it into shape I went to yoga classes, which I had already been going to. I remember one morning while in triangle pose I felt a hitch in my back that pulled and felt like rubber band, and that is when it really went chronic. The yoga was the last straw.
The injury of the old back problem has not healed yet. I have been nursing it along for two years. I have tried the same chiropractor who helped the first time, a physical therapist, and several massage people and it still won't heal. It will subside for a few days and then return if I work too hard. At this point I have given up playing music because both the guitar and cello playing aggravate the injury. So I save my back for making guitars and just stare at my cello and the Bach suites on the music stand. It sucks.
For a few months I tried weight lifting to strengthen my upper back. One trainer told me a set of muscles to work on and leave the other set alone. Another trainer told me the exact opposite, work on the other set of muscles and leave the ones the first trainer said to work out alone. Still one more trainer told me to work on everything in small amounts. None of it worked at all, my back would hurt more after work outs, but the rest of me felt great.
After than I went to a good massage therapist who did intensive deep tissue work in the effected area, they told me no weights at all and that I should do yoga.
I'm now thinking about looking for another physical therapist.
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Nov. 16 2012 0:51:11
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estebanana
Posts: 9278
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: Share you guitar related injurie... (in reply to Ricardo)
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quote:
Acupuncture? You sound like prime candidate for my "fresh advil" theory.
Several doctors have advised me not to take advil. One is that advil an alcohol are tremendously hard on the liver, basically the two together shreds your liver.
The other an acupuncturist told me that advil may reduce inflamation, but it is part of the inflamation that triggers a healing response in the body to address the painful area.
One doctor recommended naproxin as a substitute for ibuprofen, or I can simply not drink. I get more relief from the pain from two beers than a handful of advil.
If I could lie in bed for a month and not do anything except take hot tubs and sleep I would probably be better. But that ain't gonna happen. I use my back every day and I can't isolate it or immobilize it like a hand or forearm. At this point I've just decided I may just live in pain an make the best of it. Nothing has worked as a solution to this problem, so I just pace myself.
____________
As for Bach on guitar, it's better on the cello because it lays on the instrument in such a way that the open strings resonate and give the passages massive overtone support not possible on the guitar. Sometime as an experiment you might try tuning the guitar in fifths and playing from a cello score.
I think the partitas for violin are better on guitar, but the same thing happens with the overtones. They say that Bach is universal and can be payed on any instrument, ect. but there is an inherent cellistic logic to the cello suites that has them on the instrument in certain registers to take advantage of the overtones a sonorities in the keys they are written in.
So knowing that, yes it is a bitch to not be able to work on them or my other cello interests like just keeping up scales a intonation work. The number three in C major is fun, but five is the heavy and has a short fugue in the prelude that is really good. I like the D minor too, number two, and D minor can work well on guitar. The D minor #2 has a chord sequence which ends the prelude which sounds lush on guitar with the lowered D. If you can, play it with the bass E tuned down to D. That way you have two bass D's ( double DD's if you will) for overtone support. Same thing for #6, which is in D major. In my thought the G major works the least well on guitar, even though it is played the most.
S.
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https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Nov. 16 2012 17:49:07
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rogeliocan
Posts: 811
Joined: Nov. 23 2009
From: Canada
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RE: Share you guitar related injurie... (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
Ten years later I aggravated the same part of my back by working too many hours and stressing over guitars while leaning over my bench, and the injury returned. Then I had to put a skylight in and I was drilling some holes and using a screw gun over my head and the recurring injury really got bad. Then in an effort to get it into shape I went to yoga classes, which I had already been going to. I remember one morning while in triangle pose I felt a hitch in my back that pulled and felt like rubber band, and that is when it really went chronic. The yoga was the last straw.
The injury of the old back problem has not healed yet. I have been nursing it along for two years. I have tried the same chiropractor who helped the first time, a physical therapist, and several massage people and it still won't heal. It will subside for a few days and then return if I work too hard. At this point I have given up playing music because both the guitar and cello playing aggravate the injury. So I save my back for making guitars and just stare at my cello and the Bach suites on the music stand. It sucks.
For a few months I tried weight lifting to strengthen my upper back. One trainer told me a set of muscles to work on and leave the other set alone. Another trainer told me the exact opposite, work on the other set of muscles and leave the ones the first trainer said to work out alone. Still one more trainer told me to work on everything in small amounts. None of it worked at all, my back would hurt more after work outs, but the rest of me felt great.
After than I went to a good massage therapist who did intensive deep tissue work in the effected area, they told me no weights at all and that I should do yoga.
I could not help to burst out laughing reading your post because in the end you are told to do what first re-ignited your problem. Hilarious.
But I have been through this, it's a problem solving exercise and everybody tries different things and tell you different things. In the end I have learned that if I don't think what they say makes sense, I just leave. And that has served me well, you eventually (hopefully) find someone that can help you.
It might be worth getting and MRI. It was good for me because it showed no problems with my spine or facets. So a good crack at the chiro and massages really help, and core exercises.
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Date Nov. 16 2012 18:51:23
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Mordorito
Posts: 50
Joined: Aug. 11 2012
From: Delaware, USA
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RE: Share you guitar related injurie... (in reply to rogeliocan)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: rogeliocan
But I have been using a baseball and a croquet ball to work it harder, and I use it on my erectors too. You say that that Yumana ball works well?
I just realized it sounds like you are asking if the Yamuna ball is better than the baseball and croquet ball. I do not think it is the ball that makes Yamuna work so well. It seems to be the order in which you do the muscles, and the techniques, that help with the results. For example, you sink your hip onto the ball, flex the foot, lengthen your leg, raise your leg, lengthen some more, and then lower slowly. Then you roll over the ball an inch or so and repeat the flexing, lengthening and raising, etc etc.
I don't think you necessarily need to buy the Yamuna ball, but a baseball or croquet ball might be too hard. Tennis ball works well enough. You don't want to stress the sciatic nerve in the back of your hip. Also be careful with the front of hip/inner thigh, because of the femoral artery, and a baseball on the erectors is very close to the tiny bones of the vertebrae where muscles attach. Yamuna has balls for the calves that work well on hips, back etc.
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Date Nov. 17 2012 3:26:52
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