Arthritis...

[clementi11]

Hi There,

I wondering if anyone here has any good tips or helpful suggestions as I'm more or less at a loss to know what to do a the moment!

I developed a form of rheumatoid arthritis recently which is obviously not good news for anyone but as a pianist, it seems like the worst possible thing to be told!   So far, I do still have some reasonable movement in my fingers but it's becoming more and more problematical - even typing is a problem on some days and therefore playing is also becoming a huge issue.

I do my best to massage my fingers (the small joints seem the worst affected so far), I've tried wearing cotton gloves to keep my hands warm as they seem to be more pliable when warm, I've tried rubbing deep heat ointment into them, I'm also just waiting on starting some physio, but I was wondering if anyone else had had any similar problem and, if so, if they'd found anything which improved the movement at all?

It seems worse in the morning and, obviously, during a flare up, there's not a lot you can do other than take the medication and hope for the best, but at times other than flare ups, I still have really noticeable mobility and stretch problems and, as someone who plays a lot of Bach (!) and other counterpoint-type composers, this affects my playing horribly.

Sorry to offload on you here, but I'm at that stage of thinking I'm going to have to stop playing altogether at some point and that really is too horrible to contemplate without at least trying everything I can think of first to find ways around it.

Thanks so much to anyone who may have any bright ideas (or even sympathy  - yes, I'm at that stage!  )

[indianajo]

I have some arthritis. I also have other auto-immune diseases like Type 2 diabetes since age 58, and runny nose allergies my whole life.
Better than medication is the endo-morphine you get from an aerobic heart health routine.  I have followed Dr. Cooper's Aerobics regime since it came out in the seventies. I was already on an aerobic regime due to required Army service, but unlike others, I never stopped.  Dr. Cooper's theory is that cardio-health is promoted by any regime that gets the heart rate up to 75% of (200 minus age) for more than 25 minutes, four times a week.  Warning, get a sports physical and doctors advice before starting this. Read the book Aerobics or Aerobics for Women.  Look up some health reports summarized from the medical journals by serious news organizations.  
If you follow the health news on bbc.com many studies have been done by UK medical teams that show positive impact of aerobic exercise on many health conditions, including arthritis.    Any aerobic exercise, tennis, bicycling, swimming, water aerobics, running etc etc, has positive benefits.  Of those, running is a bit hard on the knees.  
I lost a couple of weeks due to serious ice on the ground the last couple of months, and started really suffering.  Despite the lack of cartledge in my knees (running in Army boots)  I went back on the exercycle two weeks ago, and am back off the NSAID's most of the time this week.  
One advantage of a musician, you don't need a stupid meter to tell what rate your heart is running.  I just ran mine 120-144 bpm for thirty minutes watching the Olympics on TV.  
Find something to have fun, and preserve your life.  
Another group of medical studies have shown positive benefits from a primitive, old fashioned diet.  Low saturated fat, low carbo, high in vegetables with chemicals you don't want to remember the names of.  These are summarized in a book by Dr. Furman, three steps to incredible health, but the data comes from medical journals.  Cruciform vegetables, beans, seeds, berries, nuts, doesn't leave a lot of room in the diet for meat, sugar, modern luxeries.  I have been following a similar diet for six years (before the book came out) and have better fat in blood numbers, weight, resting pulse than when i quit working in 2008.  I also have less pain and can skip the NSAID's some days.  The cartledge in my knees won't grow back though, the orthopedic surgeon is quite sure.  Still, I walked 1 1/2 miles to church today, through the ice and snow. 

[ryankmfdm]

 To be 100% honest, I'm not even remotely sure what exactly is characterized by rheumatoid arthritis, but I will say that when I used to get sore wrists from a daily combination of playing piano, working out hard, and typing away on a cash register all day, this little technique worked wonders for me:

https://www.beastskills.com/contrast-baths/

[minimax]

I do not suffer from arthritis, and can not assure You that what I am about to write here will cure your problem. I had a few medical problems (anxiety and panic attacks lasting for years were the biggest) that I had fixed home using it, but along the way I gained knowledge which may benefit You. It is not a “quick fix” or a “take a pill and be happy” way, but requires work with oneself. Work means reading or listening, taking time to digest information and applying it in real life. My advise will not mean that you should quit pursuing medical help. What I want to do is to point you to a direction that may bring you help in ways that I, or You at the moment may not even think of. What I ask of You is to keep open mind, reserve your judgment to a time, when You will prove or disprove in your experience what I will share with you. Do not believe anything that You can not prove in You. It worked for me, so it may work for You.

What I have verified for myself is that in our bodies is an electromagnetic field (which we call emotions) of combined energy of thoughts and feelings. It is “custom made” by each one of us according to our early family, society programing and our subsequent thoughts and connected with them feelings. It deposit itself in muscles, tendons, intestines, and affects whole organism. You know that for a 100% only after feeling that energy extricate itself from the muscles and intestines. At the beginning it is a little frightening experience (especially if you do not have prior understanding of it – as it was in my case) but anxiety passes quickly, and we do not fret about it. We feel that energy as heaviness, depression, agitation, headaches, panic attacks. We unconsciously suppress that energy as it is painful (I mean it literally). It wants to always “expand”, hence we get a stream of unwanted thoughts. We are almost like a “pressure cooker” inside. Most of us are not even aware that a lot of what we do for fun is just motivated by running away from that pain. Of course it all differs from person to person and is dependent on our age, as with passing time we collect more of that garbage inside.

The good news is that it can all be reversed. We can free ourselves from that garbage and nobody can do it for us. Only we can do it as only we know our intimate thoughts and feelings, our desires and fears. Only use of our volition can get that garbage out. We have to bring the thoughts and feelings to consciousness and let them go. Lester Levenson created a way to accomplish that called “Sedona Method” which is very effective and easy to learn. They charge for books, CDs or DVDs, but there is plenty of information on the net for free – just google it.
I do not want to take too much space here, so I will paste a link to a tread in which you will find my post discussing it:
https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=53918.0

Why it may help your arthritis? Because in my releasing experience I could feel that energy leave my fingers and it felt like a tiny strings were pulled out of them. Will it be same for You? I do not know. You have to try and see for yourself. I have to also give you a fare warning: if you going to pursue the method, do not expect to feel everything at once in your body. It is a process and requires time and work. It took me almost 2 years of everyday work to “open my body” totally, so I could be aware of almost all remaining garbage. At the beginning the head area was the easiest to “feel”, and later it was just progressing deeper with time and practice. Lester finished it in 3 months – but I guess he had bigger motivation.

My practical advise to You as to the situation at hand. Do not let yourself be taken by negative thoughts that give you an image of You not being able to play piano later in life. Those thoughts will multiply like yeast and will affect your body and psyche. In time if you give them much attention they may really create for You what you are afraid of. Thoughts and feelings are really that powerful !!!. So, for now replace them with positive thoughts (Look up Louise Hay and and learn from her). Another thing you can try and is hard to do, is to accept the idea that you may never play again. Accepting it, will free you from fear of it. It does not mean that it has be true. Take the example of women that want to have babies and cannot. For years they try anything that may work,  exhaust every avenue to finally (as doctors say they are powerless) they give up (means let go of wanting). And within short time they are pregnant! Their thoughts of desire and fear were the obstacle. Lear how to live in the NOW of things. Eckhart Tolle is a great teacher of it.

P.S.
Feel free to ask me questions or PM, should you want so.
Here is a additional link to a forum where the method is discussed:
https://community.sedona.com/forum.php#sedona-method-forums

[j_menz]

Rubbish.