Arm Injury
With Cabaret Doonican next on my schedule, and an invite to Pickles Fest in Cardigan, Wales, soon after, I go and injure my right arm…
Caused (I think) by my overexcited Old English Sheepdog, Sophie, tugging a bit too hard on the lead one day, the arm has steadily been getting worse and worse. Just pain and stiffness in the arm and shoulder, especially at night. So, interrupted sleep, and just the general fatigue that goes with any lingering pain or injury.
It’s now so bad, I’ve had to not play guitar at one concert, where instead I just sang over some backing tracks, and though this went down pretty well, I’m now concerned about how long I will need to rest the arm in order to heal properly.
My GP says it’s classic ‘tennis elbow’, which I had four years ago, and gave me some basic tennis elbow exercises. They worked to a point. However, to me, this is different. Most of my pain is in the upper arm, and not just on and below the elbow joint like before. This has been extremely aggravated by my ‘percussive’ style of strumming, together with the tendon-strain of fingerpicking.
Anyway, after suffering with this for three weeks, I’ve booked some private physiotherapy sessions to try and sort the problem. I’ve seen my new physio coach, Shane, and he’s given me some exercises for the muscles and tendons to perform that will hopefully sort this out. Day three now and it’s already eased it enough for me to get a good night’s sleep.
I’ll keep you posted.