Elbow strumming hand, pain in elbow, weak fingertips in both hands

by Andrew
(Ohio)

First of all, this has been a good resource and made much more sense than any other description of tendonitis so thank you.

I had been playing guitar for roughly 7 hours a day, until I got some fairly high amount of pain on the my upper elbow.

After icing it for only one day the elbow pain went away but my entire right arm was very stiff.

I have taken your suggestions (magnesium, ice, etc.) and been starting to stretch and exercise more, but there is still consistent mild burning sensation in my elbow. I have also noticed that my fingergrip in both hands are very weak.

Do you believe I'm injured or is this some sort of nervous system problem?



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Joshua Answers:

Hi Andrew.

You didn't check the notifications box so I hope you find this response.

Thoughts, in no particular order.

1. You ice and pain went away, great. But still stiff in the arm afterwards, unsurprising. There's a whole Pain Causing Dynamic involved that affects the arm and more. Ice dipping helps reduce the Process of Inflammation factor, but doesn't reverse EVERYTHING going on in there.

You let it go a long time till you had significant pain, so it's going to take some time and effort to reverse the entire dynamic.


2. If fingertips in both hands feel week, that directs me two two things. A. Muscles and connective tissues too tight in both hands (100% likely) and B. compression of the nerves that feed the arms happening up at the front of the neck and chest/shoulder.

You know that 'hunched forward' position we're all in all the time, and YOU are in when you play guitar? That shortens all the tissue on the front and compresses/reduces full flow down the arms.


3. Just from what you've said, I don't think you're injured, I don't think you have a nerve problem.

I think you have the very predictable pattern and progression of a Tendonitis dynamic.

Do you have any other Symptoms of Tendonitis?

Reverse that dynamic, and symptoms go away. Don't reverse that dynamic, it's it's predictable that they won't.





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Joshua Tucker, B.A., C.M.T.
The Tendonitis Expert
www.TendonitisExpert.com