Coordination Loss/3rd and 4th Fingers

Hello,  I hope I

[CCF Neuro[P] MD, RPS]

Dear Greg:

It sounds like it might be that your neuropathy is returning.  I would revisit with your neurologist and he/she may want to redo the EMG.

Sincerely,

CCF Neuro MD

[comment from fellow guitarist]

I have similiar symptoms and found this article that may or may not be appropriate to post here.  Just more information for guitarists with ring and pinky finger problems.
_____________________________

Cubital Tunnel Syndrome in Guitarists
by:Timothy J. Jameson, D.C., C.C.S.P.

[Greg]

Thanks for the comment and article!  I had actually seen this in the past and it's a great article on Cubital Tunnel Syndrome.  How has your playing been lately?  Have you noticed improvement since the onset of your 3rd and 4th finger problems?  Thanks again!  

[Lady Jay]

Greg,

I've been playing guitar for over 25 years.  In the beginning, I would jam with my friends off and on all day long til the cows came home.  My arm ached, my hand ached, my fingers used to feel like they were molded in the grip.  I'd get so tired I couldn't choke or hammer-on the strings with my ring and pinky fingers.  Then one day... Charlie came buzzing in the door and said, "Lady?  You gotta hear this guy play!"  So he slapped an LP on my turntable and the sound of Leo Kotke (Cot-key) filled the room.  Then Charlie asked if my strings were old?  I said they were... and he started cranking my strings.  "Open tune in E, Lady!  It's so far out!  Check it out!" he said.

Well, hon... it was another world, and I got into it pretty heavy for a while because I could bar all the majors... E, F, G, A with my first finger alone and slide (ooh it was so slick!) with a cylinder.  The grip was different, so it was ease and rest, yet cool and sedative.  A word of advice from one guitarist to another is to change styles every now and then.  (Get into some blues for a spell)  I also play keyboards and the ease of the velocity keys on my Roland also serves as a way to exercise, but from a different angle.

What I'm saying is that all this isn't a cure-all for your problems, but it is a way to appease the insatiable appetite so you can continue to play through it all for satisfaction.

Yours,

Lady Jay

[CCF Neuro[P] MD, RPS]

Thanks for all your comments.  I love to learn and you all taught me alittle.  If I could play the guitar like Leo Kotke I would trade my practice in.  There is also another way to have ulnar nerve problems and that is compression from trauma.  If you have little in the way of fat in you arms and you also put weight on your elbow in particular ways then you can compress the nerve and cause the same syndrome.  

Thanks again.

Sincerely,

CCF Neuro MD

[Lady Jay]

Dear CCF Neuro RPS,

I'm considered a skinny-minny so remind me not to stress-out my elbows.  I like to learn, you like to learn, everybody has a turn in likin to learn... (lyric ?) Thought so!!!  You must be as old as me, if you recognized Kotke's name and his ability.  Turntables and LP's?  Now I know you're aged!  Ha!

If you play, tune all the strings to the E chord and start barring.  You can't go wrong and pretty soon you'll be a different kind of "Patch Adams" around the clinic and singing songs you made up!  I can hear you now...

"Hypo-hypo-hypo
oh laud oh laud-
it's hypocondria!
I say I say
What chew got
is hypocondria!" (in moderate 4/4) ha!

Just don't trade in your practice.  Musicians are a dime a dozen.  Good neurologists aren't!  But that doesn't mean you can't "practice" both worlds.

Have a good one,

Lady Jay

[CCF Neuro[P] MD, RPS]

Thanks, but we are a dime a dozen.

CCF Neuro MD

[Lady Jay]

Through your eyes, not so through ours.  "Practice" doesn't make perfect... it makes "better".

LJ

[CCF Neuro[P] MD, RPS]

Indeed!

CCF Neuro MD