![]() In one study of guitar players (2), the average rate of all "overuse disorders" ( including carpal tunnel syndrome) was 75%. But overall musculoskeletal disorders occur in 26-93% of musicians. Unfortunately, nobody has the exact statistic because good clinical surveys are still lacking. In fact, most doctors will tell you that a high proportion of their carpal tunnel patients are guitar players. Guitar players are at very high risk for this condition. Many say they have to wake up and shake out a numb hand or rub painful fingers. In almost every case, initial symptoms will occur at night while you're trying to sleep. Other times symptoms show up a few hours after playing, perhaps while holding a steering wheel or a phone. In other words, some people might feel the symptoms immediately after playing. In fact, many people don’t even notice a problem unless they’re thinking about it.Īlso in the beginning, there's usually a "stress delay" when the symptoms show up. ![]() But in cases where mild symptoms are ignored, they will almost certainly worsen.ĭuring the mild stage, pain, numbness, and tingling are only just beginning. When caught and treated in this stage, mild symptoms will resolve 50% of the time with simple rest and some night bracing. Unfortunately, this is when patients should do something about it, but they usually don't. Symptoms of carpal tunnel from guitar playing begin to show up in the mild stage. "If I designed the perfect device to CAUSE carpal tunnel, it would be a guitar!" You can see why I tell my guitarist patients. Therefore, there's no mystery about how you acquire carpal tunnel from guitar playing. Given the extreme picking speeds achieved by some guitarists, all of this creates huge stressful forces on these flexor tendons. Now combine that with rapid wrist and finger motions. While the wrist joint may be in a natural position, the fingers are in a constant, contracted or flexed position. In the picking/plucking hand, the fingers are rapidly moving (and sometimes pinching). But if you twist it in that particular position, hold it, and then produce rapid finger movements, you’ve created the perfect recipe for carpal tunnel syndrome. Usually, merely twisting and bending your hand isn’t harmful. This also forces the median nerve backward, pressing it against the wall of the carpal tunnel passageway. The result is that tendons stay twisted and contracted more than normal. Curling and holding your thumb and fingers forces joints into awkward, stressed positions. In the fretting hand, holding the guitar neck is particularly stressful to the hand’s anatomy. Symptoms of carpal tunnel from guitar playing can happen on either hand, and for different reasons.
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