My hands hurt - guitarist problems

michaelmusic

I play guitar daily and for 3hr shows on the weekend. I am also typing daily for my day job as an Account Manager. Any tips on how to decrease hand pain/soreness? Supplements, vitaments, ointments, treatments, etc. Hoping for more homepathic solutions.

Terence

I switched to the Dvorak keyboard a long time ago to relieve hand and wrist pain. It's probably more of a time investment than you had in mind but I've never looked back. The action and thickness of your guitar strings also makes a huge difference and I'm a big fan of collagen.

Ifigenia94

I personally invest a bit more on a good ergonomic mouse because I also spend most of the day in front of the screen!
You can search for ones with a bit of incline. I usually go with angles <45deg

Good luck!

Klaus_T

hi Michael, my go-to is this sort of self-massage-technique, it helps with any kind of pain in your body that is muscle/joint/tendon-related, not only for the hands:
https://www.diyjointpainrelief.com/

i am a guitarist myself and struggled with repetitive strain injury for a long time before fixing it with this technique. it is all free, and it is usually only a few sessions of this and you are all good.

also, tiger balm red can help.

if you don't already, consider doing some hand warm-ups before playing. youtube has plenty of material on this for guitar players. i warm up my hands during the last few warm-up vocal scales before band practice or gigs