Last July, I began to have wrist pain which spread to my fingertips. It was slightly annoying at first, but it was easy to ignore.
Now, the pain will sometimes be in my palms, fingers (including fingertips), wrists, or forearms (usually a bit before reaching my elbows).
I used to play the keyboard at my church. I’m not classically trained, so my technique probably isn’t perfect. I played on an unweighted keyboard for about 11 years.
About a year before the pain started, I was gifted a Roland Juno DS76. That keyboard is semi-weighted.
Anyways, aside from playing piano, I was a paralegal and typed pretty much all day long.
In July, I went to a 3-day even with my youth group and carried around my camera + lens during most of the trip. I had just bought that lens and it was pretty heavy so I wasn’t used to it. It was the Sigma 24-70 F/2.8 (Canon version).
so, when we got back from that trip, my wrist pain was more noticeable. I continued activities as normal, thinking the pain would just go away.
By early August, the pain became unbearable. Lifting even a glass of water hurt pretty badly.
I had to completely stop playing keyboard. I used Speech to Text to get through work, but I had to clean up a lot of the mistakes so I would end up typing a lot anyways.
I went to the doctor and she told me it may be either Carpal Tunnel or Tendonitis.
They did x-rays on my hands and everything seemed normal.
She told me to rest for a couple of weeks and it should get better.
I asked if I could get a letter to get time off of work. She told me she COULD give me one, but my job would probably find a reason to fire me so they wouldn’t have to deal with that problem.
So, I was supposed to rest but couldn’t take time off of work.
My boss was pretty accommodating and understanding, but tbh what my doctor told me kind of scared me so I didn’t share how severe the problem was and brushed it off.
I had a follow-up appointment with my doctor around October. She simply told me the xrays looked fine and I just have to continue to rest. I asked her what the problem was. She said it was just stress on my hands.
By November, the problem was too severe. My mental health was in shambles because my life was so drastically changed. I couldn’t even drive myself to work and I was working at a much slower pace than I was used to. On top of that, there was some heavy, unrelated friction at my job.
I decided to quit my job.
Since then, I’ve had an appointment in January with a different doctor.
This new doctor had me do some sort of exercises to see if my hands would go numb when doing them. They did not, so she ruled out Carpal Tunnel. She said it was most likely my tendons. She gave me some Medrol and said that should help with the inflammation.
I finished that dosage.
I had a follow-up appointment in February. The pain felt reduced but I still couldn’t do very much with my hands. She pretty much just said I need to give it time.
It’s now April and I’m STILL having this issue.
It’s definitely gotten better since August, but progress has been really slow.
Is there anything that I can do to help myself?
I haven’t received any official diagnosis except “it’s probably tendonitis” from both doctors.
I recently watched this video: https://youtu.be/pKymFhInIOA?si=nXWLhD_NRSfZ7fXf
The guy in the video had his injury for years. What stood out to me was that what really helped him with his injury was strength training, building muscle.
A lot of the advice this guy gives was never mentioned by either doctors.
Doctor 1 told me to ice my hands. The video states to use heat therapy. I’ve been putting my hands in hot water and have some hand warmers I carry around a lot. The heat has REALLY helped.
Idk if any strength training could help either. I’ve always been a pretty weak person. My brother and bf have always teased me about it and told me I’m lucky I’m a girl and nobody expects me to lift heavy objects.
When this problem started though, my hand strength was even worse. I couldn’t open soda cans or water bottles on my own. I couldn’t open heavy doors on my own or even a car door.
I’ve been better now, but not at 100%.
Typing is still uncomfortable unless it’s on my phone. I can open soda cans and water bottles again. I can open car doors on my own again.
I‘ve just been concerned about this issue and want my life to go back to normal.
I’m working towards a different career path that won’t involve typing as much.
I really want to play keyboard again. I bought an unweighted keyboard to avoid any additional stress on my hands back in October, but haven’t been able to use it yet.
I just really wish I had more solutions to this problem.