Klarinet Archive - Posting 000443.txt from 1998/07

From: Lee Hickling <hickling@-----.Net>
Subj: [kl] Tendonitis, CTS and RSI: some questions
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 13:06:08 -0400

I had "tennis elbow," an alarming but not necessarily painful swelling of
the elbow. The doctor I saw said it was a symptom of rheumatoid arthritis.
If that's so, it would have nothing in common with tendonitis, repetitive
stress injury or carpal tunnel syndrome. Would one of the physician
musicians on the list tell me if I have it right?

While we're at it, are CTS and RSI two distinct clinical entities, or is
CTS just one form of RSI?

And has a physician out there any reaction to the recommendation one
Klarinet-L subscriber offered, that sufferer go to a chiropractor? I was
made very uneasy by that, and even more by the treatment that a
chiropractor ordered.

Roger Shilcock asked:
> ..... do pro tennis players get tennis elbow? If not,
>perhaps they heed the warning signs - whatever they may be. I get pain
>sometimes which I always (so far) recover from pretty quickly. I would
>start worrying if I *didn't* recover quickly, I think. Isn't this
>reasonable??

On the basis both of clinical considerations and personal experience, I
agree with what Robin Black wrote:

>> 1) Someone advised "exercising your muscles." WRONG! This is an
*injury* and requires rest, not exercise. You risk injuring yourself worse
than before if you don't give the tendons time to rest and heal.
>> 2) Someone else wanted to know why we don't work to "prevent"
tendonitis. You can't "prevent" tendonitis any more than you can "prevent"
a gunshot wound. It's an injury to the connective tissues on a joint, and
the only possible way to avoid tendonitis is not to overwork the joint ....

Hm ... you can prevent a gunshot wound by staying out of the line of fire.
And you can minimize the risk of carpal tunnel syndrome, if not prevent it
completely, by holding your clarinet or sax correctly, or setting up your
computer system correctly. Almost every workstation I've ever seen is
designed to cause CTS. I've gone to great trouble to get my keyboard down
to 21 inches from the floor, and the monitor down to where I'm not
stressing my neck by looking upward as I work.

Lee Hickling <hickling@-----.net>

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