As some of you know, I’ve been working through an arm/hand injury this summer. At the beginning of May, I took two weeks off from regular guitar duties and immersed myself in a computer project: the redesign of this site. The unrelenting attention I gave to the project and my overall of out-of-shapeness led to pain in my right shoulder and arm, and numbness in my right ring & pinky fingers.

After a few days of pain I went to the doctor. My Neurologist diagnosed me with 2 pinched nerves: one in my shoulder and one in my elbow. She sent me for a MRI to examine my neck bones and for an EMG to check my nerve conduction. She also gave me a prescription for Physical Therapy.

My tests turned out normal. I had a couple of bone spurs in my neck, but I did not need surgery. My nerve conduction test (an EMG is a test where they electrocute you and then see how long it take for my hand to convulse) was totally normal.

The prognosis I kept hearing was that I had a bit of an overuse syndrome. Too much of something pushed me over the edge.

My physical therapy has been wonderful. We started off just working on healing the irritated area. I had to work a lot less, do plenty of stretching and spend time with a heating pad. I also had to sleep with an arm splint and a neck brace.

The second step in PT was to increase my strength. I’m 6′5” and not very muscularly developed. I have to look down at much of the world and tend to have curved shoulders in average posture. The strength training exercises were designed to build the muscles in my back that pull my shoulders straight. With a mixture of these exercises and kinesio tape , I really started to see a change my in condition.

Right now I’m mostly on the other side of the injury. If I really push things, do to much computer stuff, or don’t do my exercises, then the pain & numbness come back. All in all, is a good reason to get & stay in shape. I do need my body to play guitar.