Arthritis anyone??

[Bluesnote]

Strange as it may sound, a lot of these problems can start off at your neck joints and not in the fingers where the problem shows up.
I have had neck problems since around 97 and have lost the use of some arm and shoulder muscles. It started off with tingling in the fingers so I naturally thought it was arthritis and overplaying but soon foung out as things developed that it was a trapped nerve in the 5/6 vertebra. Took the NHS a long time to get their act together (one and a half years) and then they operated and after much healing time I seem to be ok for now.
I could'nt play for over two years at first and ended up selling my stuff as I thought that was me retired but I'm back in full swing once again.
All I'm saying is that it's something else to concider and quite often your neck takes a pounding through guitar playing due to bad posture and maybe (like me) having it hang on my left shoulder all my playing life and causing quite some discomfort in that area, which again can cause neck irritation and inury in the long term.
I suppose another thing is that most of you most likely use heavy guage strings 12/13s ? and maybe do too much playing with them, I find that if I use 12s my fingers get tired and sore after a lot of playing, so I use lighter strings on my other guitar and use that for practice ie scales/arps etc, and only use the heavy guage guitar when I want to record something or play to a backing track.
What I've always wondered and would like to ask some of you bass players out there if you get any major problems with your hands and fingers? I've read that you get a lot of shoulder troubles due to the weight of most basses but I was wondering about the heavy strings as well?

[des mcneill]

Hi Hugh,
I am a bass player,the fore and little fingers of my left hand plus my left thumb now have arthtitis,- years of stretching the frets I imagine. Am not as yet aware of shoulder problems although I have learnt not to use my Burns bass all afternoon ! I can play my P bass all day with no problems.
Des.

[Iain Purdon]

Yes, I go along with that. The Burns Rostill is very heavy and after a four hour gig I really know about it. The Fender P-bass is joyously light by comparison but even that after a full evening 's work is enough for me.

Arthritis goes with the territory. Jet had it, Licorice has it. I thought my bass playing was the cause of the arthritis in my right thumb but I now think it's not. The pain comes and goes regardless of whether I've been playing.

The pain in my case comes from inflammation of the tissue around the arthritic joint. My GP gives me Voltarol (diclofenac) which is an anti-inflammatory and advises me to take 3 a day after meals on the day before a gig, the gig day and the day after. This keep the inflammation at bay. The crumbling bone, however, is irreversible....

Eventually it will stop me playing, but it hasn't yet!

Iain

[Mike Honey]

Interesting thread this one. Before i left UK for good in 2001 I was teaching at various schools and two old peoples homes (. 'hate that name!). A lot of the folk there suffered from arthritis and after a while,although i was only getting them to play very simple chords, many of them swore that their arthritis was improving;

mike

[des mcneill]

Hi Mike,
I think this is a "catch 22" situation. I have little doubt the arthritis in my left hand is bass related,the first joint in each case is swollen,all the rest and the right hand are fine. At the same time I think it is important to keep the joints moving,it is just that I am a heavy handed player and I think I have almost worn everything out. The thing is,I have less trouble on the bass than I have on guitar,long may it continue !
Des.

[Fenderman]

I don't have athritis (yet) but i do get some mild throbbing in my fretboard fingers after playing the guitar for more than an hour. I probably dosen't help that i'm using a keyboard at work all day, so i'm probably well on the way to athritis........

[Rich Cowling]

The Volterol gel has given me more relief than anything else ...it works my arthritis is the product of football and the building trade..

[Jiggerz]

I have Osteoarthritis in my left wrist after a motorbike accident in my teens that gives me gyp, combined with carpal tunnel in that hand too. The only OTC thing that helps me is as Rich says, Voltarol gel, and also Voltarol pain-eze tablets. They used to be only available on a scrip, now only the case for the stronger ones.

[JimTidmarsh]

Well, since I saw the doc this morning I've applied Voltarol gel a couple of times and exercised my hand in a bowl of warm water and the symptons went away for a few hours. That seems to work - I'll just have to keep it up.

It's comforting to know other people have/are suffering. I always thought that regular playing would keep such conditions away - how wrong can you be?

[Didier]

Not being a player myself I don't have arthritis problems with my fingers, but i do have some with my knees (I did quite a lot of alpine skiing at competition level), and a few years ago, going down stairs became painful.
Since I have been taking glucosamine on a regular basis, things improved a lot.

Didier