Wow… it just hit me today how MESSED UP my hands are!!!

[baimun]

Between a couple hand injuries and playing guitar foe most of my life, my hands… particularly my left hand… is soooo messed up.

When I was a teen, I had a hunting dog try to use my hand as a chew toy… the scars on the back of my hand and on the index knuckle are where the dog’s canine teeth lodged into my hand.

But then as an adult I had another injury to the tendon sleeves of that same finger… compounding that previous injury. The tendons swelled up and I couldn’t bend that finger without intense pain or apply any pressure with that finger tip. After 16 months of therapy I could finally bend it about 90 degrees and it was about 2 years before I picked up a guitar. Even then, many of my bar chords were middle and pinky, not index and ring.

I’ve known for a while that finger has become crooked over the years and I have to continuously battle scar tissue.

I just noticed a hard knot on the side of my finger That spot between the knuckle and nail is not just wrinkled skin… it feels like bone underneath. I noticed because I kept feeling it rub against my middle finger.

I started stretching my hand, flexing the finger to limber it up… and I noticed that the knuckle doesn’t bend straight anymore… it spirals as it flexes :facepalm

 

[mongooz]

there is/was a video (may still be on YT) of Larry Carlton talking about how playing guitar for his whole life shaped his left fingers into a curve.
and he holds up his hand and you can see how they are all curved from playing.
i guess it's a part of the biz of playing guitar.

 

[baimun]

@mongooz That makes quite a bit of sense.... When I flex all the fingers on that hand, they all seem to rotate to flatten out across 4 or 5 frets on a fingerboard instead of a sphere shape like grabbing a ball.

 

[tiger roach]

How do you type with those freakish digits, let alone play guitar?



Naw, I doubt many people don't have a screwy finger or two. Pinkies, in my case. Those who don't can look for work as a "hand model."

 

[Flamencology]

That’s what happens who spend too much time with Taylors and Paul Reed Smiths. It’s old people stuff.

 

[Lerxst]

ha, I don't know where to start with how many ways I've damaged my fingers and hands.

Had to be fingerprinted for a job once and the guy who was doing the prints was amazed how messed up my prints were with scars.

 

[baimun]

How do you type with those freakish digits, let alone play guitar?



Naw, I doubt many people don't have a screwy finger or two. Pinkies, in my case. Those who don't can look for work as a "hand model."

Yeah, my right hand is screwed up from many other types of injuries. The right index finger can't bend tightly enough to make a fist, and I had a tendon snap in my middle finger which curled up into a hard little ball on the underside. It used to hurt even just pressing my hand flat like a pushup.

Now that I think about it... that might be the hard knot in my left finger. I had been working on my vehicles over the past few days... maybe I over exerted something and splayed off a small tendon or something.

 

[Denverdave]

My left hand is in a cupped position when it is resting.

 

[Modern Saint]

Mojo @baimun. Sadly now my index finger on my left hand has become a trigger finger. Swollen by the first knuckle. Been doing hot wax therapy and messages. Also wear trigger finger support when it is painful as well as sleeping. After a gig, I put the support on to keep it stabilized. Have had to alter the way I play some chords as well as scale are done by changing hand positioning.

 

[Monson]

I don't recall ever having a really serious hand injury, but I find it kind of impractical and potentially dangerous that when I'm chopping vegetables for example, it's my fretting hand that is in the receiving end of the chef's knife. I try do be really careful and never show off.

 

[DdBob]

I've got 30 years professionally wrenching on cars.....I don't realize anymore when I cut my hands until I see the blood drip on something. My right bird finger pops and sticks at 90 degrees.I've burnt them on exhaust manifolds catalytic converters hot liquids, smashed them breaking bolts loose, or things like yanking a heavy object to free it only to have the heavy object smash my hand against another object. .....no arthritis yet but should be down the road soon......and then there is the back problems....oh joy