Hands hurt??

My hands are very stiff and getting more painful as time goes on. (Arthritis). I saw this in a cataloge being used for support gloves for a piano player. Do you think they would help?

http://www.handeze.com/products.htm

I wear these sometimes when I type or sew, but haven't tried them when gardening. They help to keep my hands warm in the winter and do ease the tiredness. I got mine at the "drug store" in our supermarket.

Pati - if you don't get many replies here, try posting in the disabled gardeners forum or in Health, Dieting and Beauty. Also, Handhelpers at DG has a business with just this kind of products, so you might want to contact her and check out her website. :)

This message was edited Aug 27, 2004 3:24 PM

Thanks all. My right hand is worse, and the little finger is beginning to curl. Come to think of it, I just might have "mouse" tendenitis! LOL
Pati

I found this review on HandEze products. A little dated. OK, quite dated. (9/97)
http://www.craftsreport.com/september97/handeze.html

I really would like to know how you like it if you do decide to try it. I try to pick up piano playing again after 9 months rest. I can't believe how much it hurts.

Pati, every day my hands seem to be getting more crooked as well; I couldn't point a straight finger if my life depended on it. LOL. Don't ever ask me to point you in the right direction! They have bumpy knots on the joints and pain some thing terrible. I had not heard about the gloves, but it makes some sense that the pressure of something soft would be helpful.

Drop --- I looked after my dear friend for some years; she was born in 1900 and died in 2000. She was classically trained in piano and played up 'til her death even though her hands were misshapened from arthritis. We miss her so much; her spirit, strength and humor were amazing.
Gary/Louisville

Pati, I heartily agree with GW... contact handhelpers here on DG!

Pati please post how this turns out. I also have arthritis in my hands but sometimes my gardening gloves hurt to even put on. If these work I will certainly get some. Jenny

I too have arthritis and my fingers have bumps on them and are twisted. Sometimes when I bump one of my joints that has the bumps on them it almost brings tears to my eyes. My grandmother's and my Mom's were the same way, I sure hope neither of my girls has arthritis this problem.

drop, I hope you will keep us posted on how you are doing. I understand musicians often cope with an incredible array of hand/arm/shoulder issues that is supremely frustrating.

My tendinitis is abating, but I don't anticipate getting back to music with the same intensity as before because I have been enjoying a better balance in living discovered during the hiatus.

What I would love to find is a publication that gives an intermediate repertoire for chamber music involving the piano (and classic guitar). And then, in the best of all possible worlds, a directory of local musicians willing to participate on that level, once a month for fun (or not).

I'm sure there are many people approaching limits to their musicianship for all kinds of reasons (let me add time and money to mine), so it would be very helpful if we and others could get a supportive dialog going here on how we heal, cope and transcend.

So, are there any other musicians, amateur and professional, who have had to cope with anything like this? What did you do?

darius - your earlier comment in another thread asking me to use more spaces between sentences is making me pay more attention to whether verbage contributes to or strays from the subject at hand. thank you, and yes, i will "always take your comments well". I'm here to learn something in more ways than one.

bluespiral,

I am a adult beginner. With retrospect, my posture was wrong, wrong, wrong to begin with. But I hid it so well that even my piano teacher didn't detect it. Tendonitis started only six months into my study. I had been learning and enjoying piano playing for almost 3 years now. I had rested on and off, mostly for tendonitis, for 10 months.

I had gone to a Chiropractor. That was a great help. I unrealisticly expected the problem to be gone forever. It hasn't. Still, there are many, many adult beginners. And many could enjoy playing without pain. So there is a way. I just need to find it.

bluespiral, I could use your advice on selecting an instrument. I would email you off forum.

When I was seeing a therapist last year for arthritis in my hands he said that those gloves actually put more strain on the joints and therefore are not good for arthritic hands. Just his opinion maybe but that was his input.

I like to use the hot wax treatments for my hands. It really helps a lot.

Both my family doctor and my Chiropractor warned against the hand and wrist brace with a metal plate in it. They both said that, in my case, the brace would weaken my wrist. Since the brace really limited motions, I didn't insist.

Hi drop, I'm afraid I don't know how to respond with a short answer regarding tendonitis and the piano. Hope you guys will be patient with me.

I am not a professional musician, doctor, or anything else. I just have hopes, questions and theories.

Drop, you and I seem to have three things in common: the piano, tendonitis and possible orthopedic issues. The day before I lost medical insurance last year, my doctor hypothesized a possibly pinched nerve affecting my right arm as a result of scoliosis.

Where we differ may be as to what we may have done to cause the tendonitis. So, I'll just describe what I think caused mine in case it helps anyone else out there:

Bad practicising habits probably had a lot to do with my tendonitis: some days I didn't practice at all and other days I overcompensated with hours unbroken by any break. My first teacher talked me into giving a 2-piano concert for fund raising a year after we began working together. We did it and it was wonderful to play that kind of music, but we should have snuk up on it more slowly. Napolean wasn't the only one who misjudged the gap between what the mind can imagine and the body can do. What a Waterloo for my paws.

So paying attention, moderation and balance might have prevented my tendonitis.

Another thing I think is extremely helpful is physical therapy. It greatly improved my situation and I can now play pain-free what used to hurt. I have not yet worked up to where I was before, but it looks possible, with patience and discipline. The critical elements of physical therapy were rest (start with no activity) and antiinflammatory (prescription from doc is good idea, here, but pay attention to possible side effects to stomach - I stayed away from them) at the beginning with heat treatments (they aggravated my arm, so we stopped that). Next, gradually develop pt exercises and then gradually return to activity (followed by ice). The guidance of a physical therapist is very important. He definitely advised against a brace for the same reason your doctor advised you not to use one.

My recommendation for an instrument, should the piano not work out, is the recorder. I once read about a woman in her 80's bedridden for half the day with arthritis. The other half of the day she did modified gardening (!), moving around in some kind of a motorized cart, using tools with extended, modified handles. She read books - only nonfiction. Traveled to London from the states - alone. And she played the recorder. Very inspiring.

I thought it was supposed to be painful for all beginner. I didn't stop until I kept missing the 5th. My fingers were so weak I couldn't hit a 5th. Then I finally realized something was wrong.

I have no problem gardening! Thank goodness. What do I do with my time if both my favorite hobbies are taken away from me. I am getting nervous about piano playing now because winter is coming. Last winter, having nothing better to do, I went online and buy and buy. I hope piano playing is a good distraction for me. :-)

I have no problem working the clay soil. I am obsessed with improving the soil, probably excessively so. After 8 to 10 hours of that, my whole body would ache but it is not the same as tendonitis and I usually am able to bounce back pretty quickly with yoga.

bluespiral, I really am sorry that you lost your medical insurance.

So, I should not be wearing a brace? Neither my doctor nor the specialist said anything about this. Mine has the metal plate in the bottom. I see the orthopedic specialist tomorrow for a follow-up and I'll have to ask him about this.

Hi gardenwife, how are you doing?

I believe it is different for each person. Lots of people wear braces for their wrist and hand problems. Many said they had good result with braces at the other thread at Health, Diet and Beauty forum.

Either I was at my early stage and my doctors thought braces wouldn't be the right thing for me or my wrist and fingers were twisted in such a way that braces would be no help :-)

Kim, my supervisor at Powell Gardens has carpal tunnel and tendonitis in both wrists and has had surgery, PT, braces, etc. She is now being fitted for a brace to wear at night only. She was also told she had overdone the backward extension exercises and has caused more harm than it did good. I think the key is always moderation.

I asked the specialist about braces today, asking him if the kind I've been wearing with the metal is okay. He said that, to him, it's a matter of comfort. If the brace I'm wearing provides the best relief and provides the right amount of immobilization, then wear it.

He gave me another injection today, this time of Depo Medrol and in the flexor tendon on the bottom center of my wrist. Ow! I have another appointment September 29. He said there are some other braces we can try out if it's not better by then.

Kim,

Was that the same injection that was quite painful?

Yes, but this was a different steroid (they were out of the one they used the first time) and in a different tendon. The first was in a tendon coming down from the outside of my thumb. This one was in the bottom of my wrist, right in the center. This doesn't hurt as badly as the thumb one did. Yay!

This message was edited Sep 2, 2004 6:58 PM

hi everyone - daisy sent me over here....
re:musicians/artists - please check out the Alexander Technique or Feldenkrais Method
Both of these were recommended to me by my cousin [musician]
http://alexandertechnique.com/
http://www.feldenkrais.com/
and another good site relating to musicians and injury [with links taking you to many good places]
http://eeshop.unl.edu/music.html#LINKS
re: handeze product - i tried them way back when and they didn't do anything. i wore braces all the time when i had carpal tunnel, both the cvs kind and the OT-made kind. excellent for sleeping and worn to force you to maintain neutral wrist position. since my hands started falling asleep again when i wake up, doc told me to start wearing my brace again at night :>( - that means i must be curling my hands/arms when i'm sleeping.....
as mentionned above, posture, stretching, keeping your wrists 'neutral' and taking breaks - and varying activity [oh the days when i used to be able to garden 8-10 hours a day!!!! ] are absolutely the most important things everyone should be doing....
re: gloves - i never wore gloves in 20 yrs of gardening till i found the bionic garden gloves...now i won't wear anything else. they make my hands feel good - better than when i'm not wearing them. they're expensive but worth every cent.
when my hands get swollen and painful and i want type, my easy-fix was cutting the tips off isotoner gloves....when my arms get swollen and painful, i wear an elbow nikken wrap or a sports knee pad.
hope i've made some sense here...

Handhelpers, thank you. That's wonderful stuff -- something concrete to go by. Gardening and music and typing and house rehabbing, etc. always conflicted with each other. Your information gives tangible tools with which to apply mind over paws.

"Mind over paws", I like that :-). That brightens a foggy morning.

hey guys - just remember i'm not a trained expert - just a poor gal who had to learn through experience [read up on anything and everything - talk to as many experts as possible - live with/through all the pain and surgeries] BUT the one thing i learned too late ....LISTEN TO YOUR BODY... and take heed.

OK, I lied.

I bragged about gardening for hours and my hands didn't hurt. Not entirely true. While my hands didn't "hurt", the rest of my body was trying to compensate. I didn't find out until I went for a deep tissue massage. I had knots EVERYWHERE. That wiped the smurk off my face really quickly and replaced it with painful grimace.

but - doesn't the release of the pressure points feel WONDERFUL??!?!?!?!! :>)
i love myofascial release [in the same line as deep-tissue] only wish i had learned about it earlier. the knots, over time because of the compenstate/overcompensate, are often the culprit in hand/back pain. one time my therapist had to work on my neck for 2 weeks before she could even start dealing with my hands.

Absolutely!!! I would have it again. Well, not right away. I need to muster enough courage.

But yes, I have much more range of motion right now. I didn't even know I had limited range until my neck and should start to sniff up. I wish my body would let me in on it before it got to this stage.

Ok, before I say this I don't want you guys to thin I'm crazy or anything, but Arthiritis runs in my family, and my G'mom has it so bad all of her fingers are curved as a result of it. I took care of her for almost 2 years, and she is now 85 years old, and ofcourse takes a medication for it called Arthrotech.
But, for years and years my G'mom and my Great G'mom swore by this, and said it helped much more than any medicine. WD-40. The same old WD-40 that you'd use on a car to lubricate it. It helped my g'mom's hands and knees tremendously. And, I have used it as well. I'd spray it on and rub it in really good. It doesn't smell that great, but w/me, whenever I would clean w/ a brillo pad or scrub anything, my hands would get stuck. I used it for several weeks and it really helped. And now, my Grandmother is doing fine, I had to put her in a Long term care facility b'cause she had 2 fractures in her back and I tried and tried to do it all myself w/ no help and then I just couldn't anymore. She loves it there, and has won Queen of the facility, and is President. And she still uses the WD 40 whenever it bothers her bad. And as it turned out, she thought she was the only one and didn't say anything about it, but as it turned out-lots and lots of the people there did the same thing.
I atleast wanted to tell you all about it. I do not know if it just a Southern thing or what, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to try it. Just try it at a time where you have the time and do not have to worry about your hands smelling like a mechanic for a short time!

Thanks,
Traci S

I have arthritis in my wrists and lower thumb joints; also a little in most fingers. I don't believe in wearing supports of any kind on a daily basis, as they tend to make muscles weaker. I really like hot wax treatments and stretches to keep these joints limber, which eases the pain. For my thumbs and fingers, I use a massage-type stretch; its easier right after the wax treatment as the skin is slippery already. I also find that reduced salt use keeps these joints less painful.

i love hot wax treatments too. that's one of the first things i started using when my hand joints started swelling.....i use it most when the weather's cold.. sometimes i hold ice cubes too - strange how one day heat feels better, then another day cold feels better....