From: "Diehl June" <pjune@hotmail.com>
To: mpaul@unlinfo.unl.edu
Subject: Your Musicians and Injuries Page

I had been taking piano lessons as an adult for about one and 1/2 years when
some of my fingers on my left hand would go numb.  I also had pain in my left
wrist and hand.  At this time I happened to have been seeing a chiropractor
about my bad knees.

The chiropractor and my piano teacher individually gave me advice about what to
do and these are the things I can remember (this all happened about 6 years
ago):

1.  No piano for my left hand for 3 months - I was to try to keep my left hand
as relaxed as possible and do as little as possible.

2.  Use these 3 months to re-train my right hand to maintain a relaxed position
during piano playing. (i.e., Keep the wrist lower than my
hand - I had a tendency to raise my wrists at an angle that was putting undo
pressure on both wrists.  Anytime I felt tension in my right wrist I was to
stop playing and relax my wrist.  Also breathing properly maintains a more
relaxed body!  What wonders proper breathing can accomplish!!  Once I was
relaxed I resumed playing, trying to keep that relaxed feeling.)

3.  After 3 months of not playing piano with my left hand it was feeling much
better - no numbness, no pain.  I used the techniques I learned for my right
hand and the left seemed to naturally follow what the right had been re-trained
to do.

I also use the low wrist hand poisition, the stopping and relaxing, and proper
breathing when typing or anything else that might be stressful.

On my own I also discovered that by doing some hand/finger stretches before and
during piano playing seemed to help alot.  I never play with cold fingers or
hands that have not been exercised beforehand.

Today, I do not play as much as I would like, but when I do I have no pain and
no numbness.

I hope this information might be helpful to someone.  I would like to stress
the point that the chiropractor I was seeing was great when I developed the
hand/wrist problem and my piano teacher was totally supportative.

June Diehl 

My web home:
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/6790/