Thumb pain

[sunjamr]

During the past couple of months I have been doing so much alternate thumb picking that by now my thumb is aching whenever I start to play fingerstyle. I have never had any arthritis or joint pain in my entire life, so I wonder, is this it? Do I now have arthritis? Will it go away if I stop playing fingerstyle for a while? So I took a one week break from playing and the pain went away, but as soon as I started playing fingerstyle again, it came back. Bob and Brad gave me some advice here:

I won’t be taping up my hand, which is their first option. But maybe some of the massage movements they suggest might work.

Do any of you guys have a similar situation? If so, how have you dealt with it?

Sunjamr Steve

[charjo]

Steve,
It might not be arthritis. It could be de Quervain’s tenosynovitis, an inflammatory swelling of the tendon sheath that the tendon to the thumb passes through. It could be treated by thumb immobilization for a few weeks +/- corticosteroid injection. Sometimes physiotherapists use ultrasound therapy. Might be worth checking with your doctor.
John

[GnLguy]

I wore a hard splint for a while and also a soft brace, eventually my issue cleared up for the he most part, only bothering me occasionally.
I agree with John about the ultrasound, I’ve had that therapy in the past and it works really well
I’ve had the steroid injections as well and for me, the ultrasound worked better. You may respond better to it than I did. Everyone responds to steroids differently – I only respond to one steroid whereas other people will respond to the most commonly used types

There is an over the counter med here in the US called Blue Emu that I find works really well for these situations Amazing that oil from emu feathers would be beneficial but it works.
Dunno what the laws are in NZ but some CBD products work even better, even the products with zero THC content

[sunjamr]

Thanks for the tips, guys. Yesterday I watched a few more videos by physios on Youtube, and I learned one trick that seems to help a lot: In a nutshell, you just grab your thumb and pull on it, while wiggling it around a bit. It’s like putting your thumb in traction. The idea is that whenever you have some spare time during the day, just grab your thumb and do it to it. So far it seems to be working.

Sunjamr Steve

[William F]

Steve, I asked more or less the same question six or so years ago, and you suggested glucosamine. It worked wonders for me. You told me to hang with it because it took a couple of months to work, which was difficult for me cause I figured it was just snake oil, but I thought that a guy who could build his own sailboat and sail it halfway around the world must know something.

[William F]

February 16, 2018 at 1:35 pm #93047 REPLY

sunjamr
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Glucosamine chondroitin by Jarrow, available on amazon.com. Takes about 3 months to work, and you can never stop taking it, though you can drop the dosage down after about a year. 20 years ago I had pain in several joints, so I started taking it then. After about 6 months I realized that all joint pain was totally gone. Now my joints are as good as when I was 20 years old.

Sunjamr Steve
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