Is your guitar playing the first thing that decreases?
 

Early this week and the last I had an "incident" for lack of a better word. I was walking as if I was 90 years old. My legs were tired and I just didn't feel right. My blood test I just had came back good, no surprises. I mentioned to the doctor about how I was feeling and there was nothing in my blood to indicate anything was wrong. My blood pressure was higher than usual though.

On Thursday morning I took my blood pressure because I felt off and sure enough it was 160/98. I stayed home from work, stayed off my feet and drank plenty of water. By the evening my bp was 130/81. I took it slow on Friday but felt good enough to return to work. I continued to drink plenty of water and this morning my bp was 116/71.

Through all of this my guitar playing has been in the trash. Stuff that used to flow is sloppy, but I can feel the old me coming back slowly. My wife said she was glad to see me walking around the stores the way I used too tonight, but my playing is still "off."

Has anyone experienced anything like this?

It's not the first thing to decline with age.

Rather, that would be something that's unmentionable here. ;)

I'd tell you what it was if only I could remember... And, has anyone seen my bifocals around here somewhere?

Joking aside, I'd probably want a second opinion if I had a significant physical event and my doc brushed it aside. Actually, my wife, the RN, would insist on it.

Good point. I had thought about that too.

Not the Banjo playing. Oops, sorry mods:eek:

When I feel worried or stressed about something I will pick up the guitar but find it hard to concentrate and put it back down again. What you describe would have that effect on me.

Glad you're feeling better now Barry.

In periods like that anything that's not crucial to your survival will be put on the ignore list by your brain, basically. And of course whatever it was that made you feel the way you felt also had an impact on the faculties needed to play.

I second the idea of getting a second opinion/general checkup ASAP. The few symptoms you describe could be an effect of dehydration (and your story suggests that drinking a lot helped you) but in that case 1) your blood pressure should have plummeted and 2) reestablishment should not have taken more than a day after getting your fluids back to normal (been there, done that, won't do it again if I can avoid it, esp. not while riding a motorcycle on a busy beltway).

Barry - you obviously had something. Modern medicine has come a long way, but it’s nowhere as precise as your body and immune system. Keep monitoring your bp and if symptoms are persisting, keep a diary. Any chance that you may have been bitten by a tick?

And yes, when I feel yucky, my guitar playing gets even worse than it usually is. The phrase that comes to mind is, “less than zero” :guitar:

Playing guitar is therapy for me, but I have to want to play. I don't have any physical maladies that prevent it, just depression.

When I am able to pull myself out my funk I will pick up a guitar and basically just follow whatever my hands want to do that day. I focus on the music and the feelings it ilicits, not the mechanics. Sometimes I'll tune to a different tuning and listen to/feel the different frequencies in my hands as they are transmitted through the neck. Tuning actually seems to help because I can feel the dissonant frequencies merge as I tweak the tuning machine and be rewarded with a single stronger frequency.

OTOH if I don't feel like playing, I'll listen to music instead and basically change my location. As with when I'm playing I don't focus on intellectual or conscious things like melodies or lyrics or chord changes/key signatures - I just listen to what my body or mind is telling me. If a piece of music is telling me to move, I move. Not strenuously and certainly not anything hippy dippy like Tai Chi - but just go outside and go for a walk or to ride my bicycle (yes, I know it's dangerous but I don't ride on roads.)

It's almost meditative. I think the hipsters call it being mindful. Back when I was young though they called it transcendental meditation. When I was a younger man they just called it "new age." It's funny how each generation thinks they've invented the wheel by giving something as simple as being in the moment and free from distractions a new name that gets dumber and dumber.

..but yeah, if I force myself to play when I'm not feeling it then at first it's crappy. By focusing on the music and not fighting my body I'm either able to eventually come around and feel better or I'll put it down and do something else like bury myself into something mind-numbing and hope that my body is able to work through the aches and pains.

Severe dehydration possibly? It's been very warm - do you spend a lot of time outside and not hydrate enough? Just thinking outside the box where I spend most of my time.;)

Um, not always... :cool:

Correct Tico! Let’s keep that offline. :up:

I'm wondering about that. I don't spend any time outside but one of my bp meds is a water pill, twice a day. I wasn't drinking a few bottles of water as I usually do.

If I drink 4-6 bottles of water a day, everything feels better and my weight starts to drop also. It's a little bit of an inconvenience though, but at least I know where all the public bathrooms are in my county :D

I am also thinking dehydration is a strong possibility, especially if you have had a tendency. I have been dehydrated a few times and the only thing I am good at when that happens is sitting down. That said, I don't play guitar much better when drinking a load of water. Sometimes if there is whiskey in the water, I think I am playing better.

Jeff

What kind of bp med do you take, to increase or decrease pressure?

And what kind of water is that? One of the risks of drinking lots of water is sodium (salt) depletion. Once your body is used to that it could well be that the short-term effect of drinking less water is an increase in sodium levels, which *could* counter the immediate effects (bp drop) of dehydration. We just had a heatwave-related info blurb in the media about preferably drinking sparkly mineral water because it won't cause the depletion effect and apparently works more efficiently.
But again, I think that biologically speaking the effects of dehydration should disappear quicker than your symptoms did once you're rehydrated. But then my experience with this involved me getting rehydrated intravenously (almost 2 pouches of plasma IIRC; apparently the symptoms scared the hell out of my wife). Evidently this way you're back to normal a whole lot quicker than through drinking water.

If you wait long enough all you'll be good at is lying down because your bp will have dropped so low that your brain no longer gets enough blood (and thus oxygen).

Did the blood test include a check of vitamin and mineral deficiencies? Calcium and magnesium deficiencies can induce vague neurological symptoms, and a vitamin D deficiency can cause a generalised ill feeling.