Saturday, May 13, 2023

Tendonitis

I'm tagging this "guitar technique" because I don't have a "music and health" tag. Yesterday I was diagnosed with tendonitis. I have played guitar for over fifty years and never had a problem, but now I do. The irony is that for quite a few years now I have been the guy professional guitarists come to when they have a problem with tension, technique or tendonitis. I have been fairly successful in helping with these kinds of problems. I even wrote a book on guitar technique. So how did I come down with tendonitis at my advanced age, especially since I retired from my performing career a long time ago? I only ever had one student with a tendonitis problem in many years of teaching.

Here is the context: last fall, for the first time in several years, I gave a mini-concert for a private audience. I played a short program of music from Milan to Rodrigo. Preparing for the program I dropped a piece by Moreno Torroba because I found that my bar chord technique was not up to it. I do daily technique just to keep a minimal amount of technique, but my index finger was not strong enough for some bar chords. So I did three things: I replaced the Torroba with a piece by Rodrigo that did not have awkward bar chords, I switched from hard tension to medium tension strings and I instituted a set of bar chord exercises that I practiced every morning. After a few months I had restored my bar chord technique. But I noticed that I had developed some tenderness in my elbow, so I stopped those exercises hoping the tenderness would go away. A couple of weeks later I was making a pan sauce in a heavy cast-iron pan and holding the pan at a steep angle to pour out the sauce when suddenly I got a very sharp pain in my elbow--it almost felt as if something had given way. Agh! Now I have a serious case of tendonitis which is an inflammation of a tendon.

I emailed my doctor and she sent an ultrasound technician to my house to take pictures of my elbow. A couple of days later I visited her in her office where she prescribed an anti-inflammatory, a cream, and a muscle relaxant. While in her office she had an orthopedic surgeon pop in just to have a look at my elbow and confirm the diagnosis. Also, Monday, a physiotherapist is going to come by my house and show me an exercise for my arm. No permanent damage and I should be back to normal in a few weeks.

If this range of services sounds weird or implausible, especially the home visits, I should tell you that this is private medicine in Mexico which is actually very reasonable. My doctor heads up a team that offers emergency and radiological services, home services, x-rays, ultrasound, nursing care, laboratory studies and so on. They even have their own ambulance. The orthopedic surgeon who dropped by is a member of the team.

Anyway, I will keep you posted on my recovery! Here is the piece by Rodrigo I swapped in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvNNaUXkHp4

4 comments:

  1. Cast iron pans have caused short-term pain to me too, but never that bad! I used to get some left-arm aches playing guitar, but readjusting my posture to get the fretboard nearer to me has solved it. Hope the tendonitis clears soon.

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  2. It is starting to feel better already!

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  3. Glad to read of your recovery and thanks for writing about something Mexican that is not the narcogang bloodbaths usually featured in the mainstream news as the only face of Mexico.

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  4. Yes, Mexico has a problem with the narcotraficantes, but it is also a wonderful place to live, not least because of the healthcare.

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