Hi Chris and welcome to the forum! All the best with your journey 
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Hi Chris. Welcome to the community!
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Hello Christopher and welcome to our community. 
If you flip sides it will be interesting to see how you get on playing as a leftie.
Enjoy your adventure.
Hi Christopher, and a warm welcome from Austria to Australia 
.
Switching sides and starting more or less from scratch sounds like a great plan. I’m quite certain, that there was a community member who did the same after a bad injury of his fretting hand. But unfortunately, my old brain can’t remember who he was 
. Maybe somebody else can remember his name 
.
I wish you a great restart and hope to hear more from you .
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Hi there,
Thank you and yes it will be interesting. One can only try.
Welcome aboard, Chris!
Glad you now find the time to pursue your dream, but sorry to hear about your left hand. As shared Mark, Justin himself swapped the guitar (for a different reason though), so I guess, this will probably work.
All the best and lots of fun on your guitar journey!
Cheers - Lisa
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Hi Chris Welcome, Sorry to hear about your arthritis.
What a great approach to relearn left handed lots of what you have already learned will be relevant.
Good luck on your progress.
A
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Hi Chris,
Welcome and I wish you a lot of fun 
Greetings,Rogier
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Hi Chris, a warm welcome from the land next to where Nicole is from, which is also down under but using your perspective 
Not sure if Nicole can confirm (and not sure either if it really matters), but there seem to be no kangaroos in Austria
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Hi Teddy
Welcome also from Australia
Nice to meet you
Sorry to hear about your arthritis. 
I love that you’re trying left handed to get around it and continue playing 
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Hey Chris, welcome to the community. Plenty of other aussies around here, I’m from Northern NSW and enjoyed greatly my trip to tassie a few years back
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Hi Chris! Andrew here from the mainland. Like you, I have some form of arthritis in both middle fingers (holds both hands up with middle fingers extended 
) - I have been diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis. Coupled with this, I also have ‘trigger finger’ in both middle fingers, meaning they lock in a gripped position when grabbing objects or, in the case of guitar, playing for extended periods. The open D chord (x00232) is particularly problematic for me, as are barre chords if playing for a long session. I have had my left hand lock on me while performing a couple of times, and this really challenged my memory and quickly able to play chords all over the fretboard while my hand is locked in a particular barre shape.
I can’t give medical advice, but this is what I do to ease (only somewhat) my arthritis and trigger finger problems:
- play for shorter periods (30 min is usually okay for me)
- finger stretch exercises before playing
- learn alternate chord voicing to avoid problem chords e.g. I play the open D by barre-ing the G, B and E strings on the second fret and play the 3rd fret on B string with my middle or ring finger.
- play guitar in different ways e.g. play more lead rather than rhythm/chords
- Learn another instrument - I have taken up bass which poses less of an issue for me and the learning curve wasn’t as great as learning guitar for the first time - and there’s always a need for a bass guitarist!
Keep on strumming!
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Hello and thank you. Great tips that I will follow up on. Sorry to hear of your arthritis, like you I do get the lock up thing happening…it’s a real bother.
I can confirm, Franz, no kangaroos in Austria’s wildlife. In some zoos, you might find them 
.
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Chris, welcome to the community forum. Sorry to hear about your arthritis. You can start learning to fret and play with your other hand. Justin made the switch for the Nitsuj practice session videos, but it was apparent while watching that it takes some time. While you are learning with the other hand, you may find some chords and riffs that you can do even with the limited mobility in the 3 fingers. Django Reinhardt became a great jazz guitar player even after severely injuring his ring and little finger in a fire. Look up his story and you might find some inspiration. Best of luck in your guitar journey and have fun.
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Hi Steve and thank you. I will check it out.
Welcome to the Community Chris.
One of the benefits of retirement is finding a great pastime like playing the guitar. For me work and other interests got in the way but never looked back after I restarted at 55 having pulled the pin early. Enjoy the journey.
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Hi Chris, welcome. Good you’re now doing what you long wished to do, playing guitar. I do not have currently issues with my hands, but I would think that trying to relearn left handed could be a good plan. You have to develop your own playing style. A little of musical theory can help you to look for some workarounds with the notes that you cannot play.
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Hi Chris. Welcome to JustinGuitar and this fantastic community. Please take your time to look around and get to know the wider space.
https://community.justinguitar.com/categories
We are a supportive and encouraging group of students and guitarists from across the world. Essentially, we are all here for music and to improve as players. We truly are a ‘community’. Members help and support one another and a friendly, positive attitude underpins this. We hope that all - young or old, experienced or new players - adopt and foster the pay-it-forward ethos that Justin personifies and embedded all those years ago when he started the website and forum.
Also, please make sure to read the community etiquette announcement for some important information and guidance.
Richard