Causes of sharp pain in a fretting finger after playing guitar or bass?

Question

I have been playing guitar and bass for about 20 years now and I have noticed that sometimes, particularly in the last five years, I will do something with my fretting hand that causes a sharp pain in the finger that leaves the tip very sensitive for a few days and makes practice or playing ( or indeed even typing ) with that finger uncomfortable.

The pain is sharp and feels like it happens a little way into the finger tip - maybe level with the tip of the fingernail. It feels a bit like a long splinter in the fingertip, but there is no mark on the skin.

It's not the same thing as callousing- I have been playing for long enough that my fingertips are fairly tough and my technique is good enough that I don't press very hard.

I notice this tends to happen more on heavier strings - on bass or acoustic guitar more than on electric.

I'm not seeking serious medical advice here- this has happened often enough that I'm pretty sure it's nothing significant - but I would like to know whether any other musicians are familiar with the experience and if so whether anyone has managed to pin down a cause. I can't work out quite what it is I'm doing to cause this discomfort ( I guess I'm pressing too hard or landing a finger on the fret or something, but really not certain ) which makes it hard to avoid.

Answer 1

This sharp sensation at the tip of your fingers is usually a combination of a minor bone bruise, damaged nerves and damaged muscle tissue from using too much pressure when fretting a guitar and extended use.

Your hand is full of what are called peripheral nerves that go from your spinal cord to your arms, hands, legs and feet. The nerve endings of the fingers are heavily concentrated on the palmar aspect (the finger surface on the palm side of the hand). There are 2,500 receptors per centimeter squared just on the fingertips!

Pain is sensed by free nerve endings, mostly located in the skin, bones, and joint capsules, and around blood vessels.

While resilient, the hand the one of the most commonly damaged part of the human body. A rigorous guitar playing session involves repeated stress to the hands and finger tips causing muscle, bone and nerve damage.

This tingling, sharp sensation guitar players experience is from overuse and can be avoided with proper stretching and warming up/cooling down. Additionally, heat or cold can help soothe the pain along with proper rest!

Answer 2

I had a classical guitar teacher give me an exercise for this, because I was experiencing tendonitis in my whole left hand. The problem is that over the years I had gradually developed a habit of squeezing down much too hard in fretting notes.

Her exercise was this: Grab a chord that uses all four left-hand fingers and fret it like you normally would. Now, gradually, by degrees, reduce the tension and pressure in your hand and sound the chord again. Repeat this procedure step-by step. Stop when you determine the least amount of pressure you can exert on the fingerboard and have the whole chord sound correctly without any notes being muted. In your practice sessions, repeat this procedure regularly to get that least amount of pressure into your muscle memory, and practice playing that way all the time.

Answer 3

Calloused or not, you're putting a lot of pressure on a very small area of your skin. this will cause some tissue damage (minor, of course), which your body will then send more blood to in order to repair. This slight swelling can sometimes put pressure on the very sensitive nerves in your fingertips.

It's nothing to be terribly worried about. It is a sign that maybe you should put the bass away for the day and come back tomorrow. It can also be a sign that you "jammed" your finger into the string at some point; even guys with a light touch can tense up and clamp down on a string during a fast run or shift. That would indicate you may need to focus a little on your technique; just because you learned good technique doesn't mean you can't fall out of the habits.

Answer 4

Could it be the callouses themselves? I've experienced pain in my fingertips from this in the past when my callouses got too hard, although the pain was not too severe.

I can imagine that if your callouses are quite hard and your fingernails are quite short, the edge of the nail could digging into your fingertip, but you're not feeling it as it happens. If something like this is the case, you could try to keep the nails a little less short.

Answer 5

I've had this problem a lot over the years.

From what I've found, the best solution is prevention. After the bruise there is nothing to do but rest and wait for it to heal.

Too much string tension and finger pressure is the root problem. A callous won't help much, in my experience. Hammering your fingers down on a string will also contribute to the problem. Also the frets can jack-hammer your fingers if sliding fast on the strings.

One, always try to apply minimal pressure to a fret. It's easy to forget, especially when trying to learn harder parts.

I recently got a half-sized classical guitar to write music on. Due to the small size and fatter nylon strings, the string tension is super low. I can play the guitar for hours without any issues. It's great... totally solved the problem for me.

Otherwise on my electric, I'd just tune a practice guitar down to C#, for example. Thinner metal strings help because you can also drop the tension.

Otherwise the worst case is trying to bend strings on an acoustic guitar like an electric. This is highly likely to cause bruising.

Answer 6

This only happens on my index finger on my fretting hand. Perhaps it IS damage since it recurs so often. I'm sure it's the tip of the bone crushing the nerves and/or slightly bruising the tissue between skin and bone. It's a nuisance. I've been playing guitar and bass since high school and I'm 63 at the time of this writing. So, I don't hold out much hope of solving it. It hurts as I type--but it has never been worth stopping playing over. Ya just deal with it.