Tendinitis

Well. As a doctor myself I think i overexerted myself, too much practice, now I have tendinitis in three of my left hand’s fingers. And have to rest from playing the guitar for several weeks.
Hope I don’t forget anything in the meanwhile.
That’s what happens when you ignore Justin advice #1. Don’t practice too much haha

:grimacing: Once your back up and playing try and keep your wrist as straight as possible. Holding the headstock of the guitar up a bit of and angle will help.

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Django Reinhart was arguably the greatest guitarist there ever was and played with two fingers:)

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Pain in the fingers shown in the diagram (crosshatched)?

Also, please note the text highlighted in yellow.

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In my case it’s more like this:
images (8)_1

And yeah I have been paying attention to not make mistakes and having bad posture or wrong wrists angles and the like… It’s just…the day before the pain started I spent like 5 (?) Hours continuously playing :rofl:
And this is just my second (third?) Month playing it’s obvious this would happen.

More like these two, it seems


I’d suggest probing the muscles in your arm in the areas indicated by the black dots.

If you find knots or sore spots, massage with a knuckle, hard rubber ball, or massage gun could potentially cause almost immediate pain reduction in your fingers.

Happened to me too a few months ago after I could do the F barre chord and switch open chords quick enough for songs (100+bpm). The joy was so inspirational and motivating to play for hours. What’s worse was there were no warning signs. I had to stop playing for a week and could only put in some light playing for the next 2, and spent 1 week getting back to speed. So basically, 1 month with no progress, just some consolidation.

I’ve since learnt that I can’t play more than 3hrs a day without my old injuries flaring up. I also wake up to some soreness that go away after awhile.

May I suggest that you go through Justin’s ear training and music theory course in the meantime.

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Strictly speaking that would be tendonopathy, not tendonitis :wink:

A good time to work on the muted strum and rhythm. Make some lemonade!

Two words: Andres Segovia.

I didn’t know he only had two fingers on his left hand , thanks

I have ‘trigger finger’ which is an inflammation of a sheath around some of the tendons in your finger. It causes the finger to lock up flexed and then painfully snap straight (like a trigger). I’ve been working through grade 1 for the past month and my trigger finger has gotten appreciably better which I attribute to the increased use of my left hand making chord shapes. So I guess it can go either way when you practice. It can exercise and loosen the joints up or it can strain joints and tendons especially if you tighten up and stress yourself trying to get things perfect

Never mind.

Let me know if it still holds up in the middle of grade 2. My index finger especially hates power chord sessions.

I know what you mean. I have arthritis in my left thumb’s basal joint. When I do anything that aggravates it I have to take time away from practicing. But I can say that learning is slower but I’m still finding that I am improving. Not ready for prime time but having fun with the easy songs. Hope you get better soon.

Mark, sorry for being a SA but I mentioned Django in the context of the thread, having tendinitis.

I’m not an expert on guitars, and I had never heard of Django until recently. I was taking a music theory class recently, the professor mentioned that we should listen to Django. Shortly after I read an interview with Jeff Beck, and he said he thought Django was the best guitarist he ever heard, and he used to listen to him when he was young. Then last week I finished reading a book by Willie Nelson, and Willie said Django was the best guitarist he ever heard.

I went from never hearing of him to having three people mention him in a period of months. I had to go out and buy one of his records.