Tendonitis from changing to new Guitar?

[austro1]

For the last 4 years I've been playing a Larrivee OM-3R. In the last 3-4 years I've probalbly learned about 70 fingerstyle arrangments on that guitar without even the slightest hint of any kind of pain let alone full blown Tendonitis.
Just last January I purchased a Maton 808TE. I bought it because I had worn out the frets on my Larrivee and had a gig coming up.... and also because I do love the looks of a Maton.

Anyways, after about a month of switching over to the Maton (I had upped my practice hours also in preparation of the gig) and solely only playing that guitar I woke up the morning after the gig with Tendonitis in both forearms and wrists. Literally felt like it happened over night.

Inititally I thought that I got Tendonitis primarily because I was too nervous and tense before and at the gig.


The obvious would be that perhaps switching to a new Guitar also played a big role since I had never had any problems with my Larrivee regardless how long I played. The Larrivee feels to have a much flatter and slightly wider neck than the Maton. I also have to admit that it took my hands awhile to adjust to the Maton. The neck just felt like a broomstick compared to the Larrivee. The Larrivee neck seems to the fill my hands better.
Anybody else here experienced such problems after switching too quickly to a new Guitar? Thanks.

[paulvcarter]

I had trouble with this a few years ago and it turned out to be my wedding ring being too tight. I would also check the string gauge, you may need to lower the size if the new guitar has a longer scale and requires more pressure to play.

[JanVigne]

I had an instance of suddenly feeling pain in my fretting hand arm after playing a new guitar (with a slightly wider neck and flatter radius) for several hours. Obviously, as anyone would tell a newbie experiencing pain; when something begins to hurt, stop doing what's causing it to hurt. A day of not playing at all and my arm was fine.

You say you have tendonitis. Is this a medically diagnosed situation? Or, you just used the term "tendonitis"? Most commonly tendonitis is caused by long term, repetitive movements in one part of the body. Actual tendonitis most typically begins as a slight aggravating pain which is brought on by repetitive motion and then gradually becomes much worse over time as your push through the pain. It would be unusual for this to come on overnight unless there where already some damage done to the muscles and tendons which you had simply ignored.

Tendonitis requires medical attention and is not an issue which will resolve itself in a day or a week's time. Normally, one of the first things a phyisician would do is have you stop performing the action which initially caused the injury. They would also probably have you wear a medical device which would give support to the affected area during recovery.

If your condition has improved in a few days, I would guess you had more of a muscle strain than actual tendonitis. Strained muscles could be caused by many conditions, not the least of which is a new guitar and a waiting audience. A completely different grip on a completely different neck would, I think, account for some amount of tension in your muscles. Push through that tension to perform for a couple hours and you are likely to have some soreness the next morning.

How's your arm now?

[austro1]

Hi JanVigne, Yes, I was diagnosed as having Tendonitis which probably more specifically became a Tendonosis problem.

My first Dr. diagnosed me as so and therefore I went through the typical therapy of ultrasound which didn't do doodly.
My Dr. never adamately said I should rest and told me that probably if I rested it would just come back anyways as soon as I started again....but he said, 'yeah the standard is about 3 weeks which I don't agree with but you can do it anyways'. He was more fixated in changing one's posture.

There are some (depending on what method they've studied) who do say that the Tendonitis dynamic can be already forming 'under the skin' before you really feel it acutely. Eventually though things stack up too much and the pain comes blaring through.
But it is true, I didn't feel the pain till one morning after a short 2 song concert!!??

I bought my new Maton last January, I got the Tendonitis in February and although it's gotten better I'm still battling it...now 3 months later.


I did originally rest for some weeks but then decided to do my own research and try some different things since many don't see a lot of improvement by the traditionally thought of therapy,,ie. rest, anti-infl. drugs, braces, etc..

I decided first to try aggressive ice dipping and ice messaging route to cut out the inflammation wich helped.
Now I'm going to another Dr. that works specifically with Musicians. He also told me NOT to rest in the sense of not playing at all.
But I'm restricted to only playing about 2-3 times daily for just 5 minutes each.
Everybody says to see a Dr. ASAP about Tendonitis/osis but what I've seen is that many don't know themselves a lot about this condition and they all have different beliefs and treatment for it depending on the school of thought they come from or who/what influenced them.
Some have told me rest, others have told me rest is ok to not disturb the present irritation further but it won't help the Tendonitis dynamic in general. Go figure.
Anyways, I was just trying to see how plausible it is that changing instruments mid-course could have been some of the cause of my present problem.
It seems that the Larrivee Om models have a pretty flat/wide neck compared to some other OMs...for ex. my Maton. Maybe other Larrivee players could attest of that as well. I'm sure that could have caused some of the problem.

[sirbutch]

Hi guys, hope I could chime in with a related experience...

I acquired in Jan 2012 my first 1 and 11/16-nut, 14-frets-to-the-body acoustic electric, after having played a 2-inch nut, 12-fret classical on-and-off since the mid-70's when I was still in high school.

Sometime in Oct/Nov 2012 or about 10 months after, I started having fretting-hand wrist pain right around where the thumb meets the wrist. The sharp pain became chronic, even at rest, and made worse by simple tasks like pulling a wallet from my jeans' back pocket. Interesting though was that there was lesser or no pain when playing guitar (or perhaps playing guitar simply took my mind away from the pain?).

Having a daughter who's a doctor-surgeon, I was convinced in December to consult an orthopedic surgeon colleague who, after a simple hand-movement test, diagnosed the condition as "De Quervain's syndrome" (yep, go ahead and google it). He initially prescribed anti-inflammatory pills and pain killers for about 2 months as a first-level intervention, and also to temporarily refrain from repetitive wrist/thumb tension (yeah, I think he meant guitar). If this failed to permanently resolve the condition, the next level would be corticosteroid injections to the wrist. The last level involved wrist surgery if both interventions failed.

By February this year the pain remained, and so I had to take a steroid injection. My surgeon qualified however that I should not expect immediate results from the injection, but rather expect a 3-6 month period for the steroids to do their job. It is also not unusual for certain patients to need succeeding injections, I was told. Glad to say that as of last month, April, the pain is gone, and I hope permanently. I'm back to playing guitar 2 hours or so a day (both guitars alternately).

As to whether playing guitar was the cause of the condition is inconclusive, but my surgeon says it could have contributed. It never occurred to me until now that perhaps the shift in string spacing and scale length had something to do with my developing the condition over a period of 10 months (i.e. Jan-Oct 2012). I guess I'll never know for sure...

I suggest that any guitarist experiencing wrist pain should research and see a reputable wrist specialist/surgeon and discuss your symptoms. Without proper and timely intervention, I heard it's possible that the condition could become irreversible.

[frankhond]

These conditions are generally caused by too much tension coupled with bad posture and othere geometry. It is plausible that a sudden shift in physical parameters would cause tension, which in turn will create or aggravate a condition. It is also plausible that you had it coming already, and the stress from switching guitars was the last straw.

Irregardless of all the funky descriptions of what might be happening, you need to (re)learn how to play without tension and bad angles. This is a long process but as a former carpal-something sufferer, I can encourage you that it can be done and is well worth it.

[austro1]

Thanks frankhond and sirbutch for the help and ideas. I think I'll really never know what caused it exactly. I think a lot has to do with tension more than switching guitars. There was just a last straw and everything then collapsed so to say.

Playing with tension really isn't music anymore, so I think I'm learning a good lesson.
Funny but it's already getting better as a result of realizing this and making adjustments.