I’ve suffered somewhat for several months from a sore
left index finger. About two months ago I shifted
from classical to piper’s grip, because I thought
the cramped position was the problem. However
it’s persisted in one form or another.
I went to a physician today, appears to be a good one,
who says that I’m probably suffering from tendonitus of
the extensor tendon of this finger–this is the one that
lifts the finger, it runs along the top of the finger.
The tendon that brings it down is on the bottom
The advice is to lay off the flute and take high
doses of anti-inflammatory meds, which I will do.
Wonder if anybody else has had any experiences
with this. Advice welcome.
I can’t respond quickly, as i’m only occasionally
online, but I’ll read this in a day or so.
Too bad you can’t just put a stick over your finger with a rubber band. Wouldn’t need to lift the finger at all, or a really strong spring on one of the keys.
including a list of things to do to mitigate tendonitis-type injuries. Hope it helps, and hope you’re back in form soon.
You could also try searching for the Fountain of Youth, to regain some of that nigh-invincibility that seems to seep out of us over time. Let me know if you find it . . .
I used to make and sell several kinds of healing bracelets (magnetic, Chi-accumulating, and subtle energy activating). Lately I have been concentrating on flutes, and my bracelets are on the back burner. Jim, I would recommend wearing a magnetic bracelet on your left wrist (day and night). See if that helps the tendonitis in your left index finger. I have received a lot of positive feedback from customers who have gotten relief from hand and wrist pain with the use of magnets. Try to get one with strong magnets, as many of the drugstore bracelets are too weak to do much good.
I have a magnetic mattress pad on my bed, and the mattress pad contains 400 domino-size strong magnets and weighs 35 pounds. As long as I can sleep at home on my magnetic mattress pad, many of the aches and pains that I once had have disappeared. I bought the mattress pad at a close-out price on ebay. I love it, but I have to remember not to lay down on the bed with my wallet in my back pocket.
Hi jim—I’m sorry to hear of your problem. These exercises are not to treat an injury such as you have, but to help prevent them. I had some wrist and forearm soreness and found them to be helpful. I did them after every 30-45 min or so of practicing. So once you have gotten totally better you might take a look at them: http://www.mindspring.com/~shin-on/handcare.html
This is a website about musicians and injuries—I have not really explored it but it might be helpful in the long term: http://eeshop.unl.edu/music.html
i have dealt w/these injuries in the past (I’m a pro musician). My best advice is to seek out a specialist in musicians injuries. Look up the name Jeff Stenback (or bach) on the web. He’s a PT located in miami. I don’thave his email, but I’m sure you’ll be able to locate it. Email him and tell him I sent you (Kynch O’Kaine) and let him know where you are located and ask if he knowns of anyone in you area.
I’ve had good results with the standard RICE treatment for tendinitis. Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation. In particular, icing the affected area helps a lot. There are lots of ways to do this, but my favorite two are to (1) wrap an ace bandage around a bag of frozen peas (they conform well to the shape of whatever body part needs icing) and the injury and let it sit for an hour at a time, and (2) freeze water in a paper cup, then peel the lip of the cup back and massage the injury with the ice, peeling more cup away as the ice melts.
In either case, try to get the area really cold, being careful not to frostbite your skin. I think I’ve developed some tolerance for icing over the years, particularly on chronic injuries, but you don’t want to add dead skin to your list of ailments. )
As the tendinitis begins to heal, you can speed the process a bit by alternating heat packs with the ice treatment. Not too hot–the idea is just to encourage circulation around the injury, and then control any residual swelling with more ice. Tendons are second only to ligaments in their paucity of circulation, so they take longer to heal than muscles. Generating some blood flow helps carry away dead cells and other waste products.
As for the other bits of the acronym, Rest is self-explanatory (though to truly rest a finger you may want to splint it so the tendon isn’t doing any unecessary work), Compression means wrapping the injury snugly to control swelling (though you may be past the point of getting much benefit from that), and Elevation means resting the injury held higher than your heart (again, to limit swelling).
I study at a music academy, and a lot of the students have pains in one form or another. The flute is definitely one of the worst instruments. I am one of the lucky ones (still…), but it seems to me that you have to take the recovering process really seriously (sorry to say that some don’t). However you can still practise. Maybe not on the instrument but are a lot of other thing that needs to be done, and this kind of things some times gives an opportunity to discover something new. You can practise your ear, you ´can learn new tunes, you can study theory or a lot of other stuff, that people often don’t have time for.
Well, I’ve never had music related tendonitis, but I have had climbing related tendonitis (rock climbing). It was tendon in my elbow that nagged me for a long time. I could climb, but it hurt to poor a glass of water. I backed off the climbing, climbing at a lower level. It took close to six months to get back to “normal”. It’s a common injury among climbers, and it can take a long time to heal. Even then, you need to be wary of that area. Changing your grip, or varying it occassionaly should help. Back off the practicing a bit as well. Time and rest are really the cure.
Several years ago I had tendonitus at the top of my rotator cuff in my shoulder. I couldn’t lift my elbow above my shoulder because of the pain. I went to a good orthopedic guy and he prescribed non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (n-saids) and physical therapy. The n-saids never worked. The difficulty was that they are not expected to work for 10-14 days. I’d take them for 3 weeks and not get any effect. The doc then prescribed a different n-said. went through 4 of them and none did the trick. (At the time my health ins. pharmacy plan was such that I’d pay $10 and they’d send me a 90-day supply. N-saids are expensive. I ended up with $1500 worth of useless meds sitting on a shelf.)
I went to pt a couple of times a week and did exercises at home. Hot packs, cold packs, no change. About 10 months after seeing the doc the first time he suggested electric shock. The pt person did it. One electrode on the arm, just below the shoulder, another on top of the shoulder. Warm tingling feeling. Experimented with levels to find the highest that was just below discomfort. Pain free in four weeks. There’s a solution out there for you. Try as many things as you can and you’ll find it. Don’t stay with an approach that isn’t working. Keep trying new ones.
Good Luck
I’ve had tendonitis in my wrists for almost a year. It doesn’t affect whistling at all for me, but it does hurt when I type. I’m a computer programmer and couldn’t type for over three months when it was at its worst.
I’ve tried a number of different remedies. Some, such as NSAIDs and acupuncture, didn’t help at all.
Two things did help:
Exercise and stretching. This helps the most; I feel much better when I do it every day. Push ups and yoga balancing work best for me, but it sounds like your injury is different than mine since yours affects your instrument. But look for something which stretches the affected tendon while it is being exercised – in my case I’m doing an exercise which involves bending my wrist towards the top of my arm.
Cut down on diuretics such as caffeine and especially alcohol, or at the very least accompany such drinking with large amounts of water. This makes a big difference for me in terms of how I feel the next day.
Heartfelt thanks to all. I will go over all of
this good advice carefully. I’ve benefitted
from the fluteboard more times
than I can remember.
Thanks again,
Jim
One of the things that I have had some problems with is the area on my back between the shoulders (it hasn’t been long lasting but maybe it could have been…) Today I was out throwing some Frisbee. That felt really good actually, a soft and a bit odd way to use those muscles. I know this wasn’t your troubled area, but maybe still worth mentioning…
I’ve been dealing with flute-related tendonitis in my left wrist/back of hand for about the last 2 years, on and off. My advice is:
Icing is a good idea. See if it makes a difference.
Find yourself some Arnica tablets and/or Arnica cream. Herbal, non-steroidal, good for reducing swelling and bruising.
Find an Alexander Technique teacher in you area. www.alexandertech.org has listings. This is a technique which teaches your body what ‘neutral’ is - often our most natural-feeling positions are actually incredibly asymmetrical, which puts the body under a lot of strain. This is the long-term cure for tendonitis. It involves retraining your posture and flute holding technique… so it’s not a quick fix. Sorry. However, it is also applicable to most other activities that involve the body - so overall it’s a pretty good idea . It will also work best if your tendonitis is mostly gone. I’ve been finding long-term contributory factors to my tendonitis since I started 6 months ago, but the tendonitis has not returned and I have been playing. Make sure to tell the Alexander Technique teacher that you play flute and/or whistle, and bring the instrument(s) along so he/she has an idea of what is happening to cause the tendonitis.
If you’re looking for a shorter-term, non-steroidal quick fix, find a cranio-sacral therapist in your area, and go for a session a week for a month or so. This is what has cleared up the tendonitis for me more than once in the last year, and I did not have to stop playing entirely while waiting for improvement. Even if you’re happier stopping entirely (I had an end-of-degree performance to prepare for), this will help very quickly and (usually ) painlessly. Craniosacral is a very relaxing therapy, which really really works. I know 4 or 5 musicians with music-related problems who swear by it, so I’m not an isolated crazy. I swear . The principles of CranioSacral are actually quite similar to those of Alexander Technique, except that in AT you have to consciously place your body in neutral, while CS allows your body to realign and heal itself.
This page has a description of CranioSacral therapy and how it works: http://www.positivehealth.com/permit/Articles/Cranio%20Sacral/page13.htm
Good luck with recovering. You will need to do Alexander Technique to remove this problem in the long term, because something you are doing with your body is causing the stresses which result in tendonitis, and steroids only deal with the effects of the problem, not the causes. If you want/need any further information, PM me.
Great stuff, which I will look into.
I suspect that a good deal of my
problem lately is that I was playing too much.
I got the latest Mike Rafferty CD and
thought, ‘This is wonderful, and maybe
I can do it too,’ and played virtually
all day for several days.
I will most certainly consider long-term
approaches. Meanwhile I’ve stopped for
two days now and I’m taking vast
doses of Ibuprofen. Finger hurts
less.
Many thanks, much encouraged by these
messages. Jim
I find this a rather interesting thread,as I’ve suffered all sorts of aches and pains in my left arm ,elbow and lately (more so) shoulder,over the last six months or so-it’s kind of crept up on me.
I’m 46,left handed,work with computers all day,and then of course come home and play Whistle,Flute,and occasionally,my Uilleann Pipe Practice set-the U.P.'s haven’t had so much practice-because my left shoulder hurts!
Of course being a typical bloke,I hate going to the doctors-I think "what’s the point-he’ll only prescribe Anti-inflamatories-which I’m already taking!
Is this just a symptom of ‘wear and tear’ (I didn’t want to say ‘getting old’ ) ?
I don’t think it is “getting old” when the problems are localized (left arm and shoulder more than right arm and shoulder) and you can come up with some idea of what could be causing it----computer keyboard all day, musical instruments. Maybe getting older makes one more prone to injury–I don’t know, but I think the aches have a specific cause. If you keep playing when things hurt I believe you could cause serious damage. If it hurts when you practice, you really have to stop. Otherwise it might get so you just can’t play.
I don’t know if the website about injuries and musicians I posted earlier on this thread might give you some idea about how to pursue this. I think there is information about how to practice—length of time, special exercises, pacing yourself, and the like that might be helpful. There might be a musician’s group you could contact about medical treatment from someone who specializes in this type of problem.
I don’t think 46 is old enough to be considered “getting old”. Of course, that could be because I’m 55.
Thanks Cynth-And of course We’re not old (55-You’re just a Bairn!! )
I think that my work is the major contributor to my problems-I do quite hard(ish) manual work at my veg patch (which strangely enough,seems to IMPROVE things).
Maybe I should have a smallholding in County Clare,instead of being a Civil Servant!
Not surprising. You’re using larger muscles and thereby effecting an improvement in blood flow. The better the blood flow, the less buildup of injury-related junk in the tissue. Everything heals better.
Jim, ice works well for injuries like that. I prefer to go for broke rather than mess around with peas and cubes.
This method is extremely effective. It’s not used much, though, because it is so unpleasant. It’s kind of this old-fashioned nightmare hydrotherapy thing.
Get a dishpan and fill about half full with ice cubes. Add water so that you have a slushy mix. Stuff a washcloth between your teeth (you’ll see why soon enough), shove the hand and forearm in the slush, and leave it there. Do not take it out.
You’ll feel a really unpleasant cold for a few minutes, then it will get numb, and eventually your hand and arm will begin to feel toasty warm. Very pleasant, in fact. When it feels nicely warm, you can take it out.
I’ll warn you that if you dip your hand in and out, in a namby-pamby fashion, this won’t work. You have to leave it in there.
This often works so effectively that a little injury simply doesn’t bother you again. A little rest and you’re all set.
Thanks for the explanation Lambchop.
I have a major ‘therapeutic’ gardening session coming on today-my muscles might be o.k,but I’ll probably end up with heatstroke!
)
. It will also work best if your tendonitis is mostly gone. I’ve been finding long-term contributory factors to my tendonitis since I started 6 months ago, but the tendonitis has not returned and I have been playing. Make sure to tell the Alexander Technique teacher that you play flute and/or whistle, and bring the instrument(s) along so he/she has an idea of what is happening to cause the tendonitis.
) painlessly. Craniosacral is a very relaxing therapy, which really really works. I know 4 or 5 musicians with music-related problems who swear by it, so I’m not an isolated crazy. I swear 
. The principles of CranioSacral are actually quite similar to those of Alexander Technique, except that in AT you have to consciously place your body in neutral, while CS allows your body to realign and heal itself.