Tennis elbow, now guitar thumb help please

Stoffeltoo

I do not know the hand common muscle names but I am experiencing severe pain in my left hand.
According to the WWW they are called flexor pollicis brevis and the abductor pollicis brevis. These muscles are in the inside meaty part of the hand adjacent to the the thumb.

I have been spending time working on triads and progressions. These exercises also forced me to change my hand position by extending the thumb and keeping it behind the guitar neck. I spent an average of 1 hour practice per day.
Yesterday I felt something akin to a cramp in the area and muscles described. Is this normal? Other than rest what can I do to prevent this from re-occuring as it is damn painful and uncomfortable.

Advice appreciated

VellaJ

I'll be interested to see if anyone has advice on this as well. I suffer from the same thing, when using a lot of bar chords on acoustic guitar, though I always put it down to my seldom using these muscles.

Bob-Dubery

Seek medical advice. Maybe seek a physio specializing in arms and hands. Some stretches might come in handy. I have one for tennis elbow but I'm no expert so I don't feel able to share it here in case its not appropriate for you.

Do you spend a lot of time on the computer? That can aggravate the elbow.

Seek medical advice.

RobbieZ

X-rated Bob wrote: Seek medical advice. Maybe seek a physio specializing in arms and hands. Some stretches might come in handy. I have one for tennis elbow but I'm no expert so I don't feel able to share it here in case its not appropriate for you.

Do you spend a lot of time on the computer? That can aggravate the elbow.

Seek medical advice.

I agree, seek medical advice. And second, take it easy for a week or so.

peterleroux

Seek medical advice ( ideally a musician) and then look at technique.
A few things that can help are raising your guitar up higher ( deeply uncool but it makes left hand work much easier) and learning to play with less thumb pressure- if you use your right forearm to push on the body behind the bridge, you should be able to play with minimal pressure from your left thumb.

Good luck, and definitely make time to see a physio/biokineticist/doctor

Banditman

What everyone said: seek medical advice, ice pack & rest. It could be anything from muscle strain through to arthritis. A professional will tell you.

If you've suddenly jumped to longer and more technical practice times, are you warming up first? I'm having to rest my left hand due to basically that. Played mostly brain-out practices for a long time, and then suddenly jumped to up to an average of 3 hours a day for 5 weeks while preparing for a show. By the close of the 2nd night, my left hand was starting to look like Mickey Mouse's. It doesn't help that I teach people how to ride motorcycles (guess which hand operated the clutch lever) and do a lot of writing work on the pc.

Don't be tempted to push through the pain - rest, see the doc and follow the advice given. And copy my note to self - warm up properly in future.