Only fellow musicians truly understand the pain: being a musician is tough stuff.
First, you must learn to play well. This requires talent, practice, and commitment. And then there’s the damage playing music physically does to your body — musician injuries caused by repetitive stress are as common as broken strings and cracked vocal cords.
And the pain doesn’t help the music. Pinched nerves and tendonitis can slow you down, limiting practice and performance time that could otherwise be spent actually becoming a better musician. You want to play your best, but it hurts too much.
To help manage the pain, many musicians end up taking medication, sometimes even off-the-street pills. Not only can these drugs be hard on the stomach, but they can lead to debilitating addictions that can wreck a career — even kill you.
Others wear braces or try surgery.
And through it all, you’re probably asking yourself: Is there a better way? You want to play like Prince, not end up like him.
Fortunately, there is. Carpal tunnel syndrome, nerve compression and tendonitis can be treated naturally. Homeopathic approaches can not only help your music career, but actually save your life.
Where I’m Coming From
Music has always been part of my life. I grew up singing with a voice that developed from soprano to tenor. My instrumental focus at various times included flute, piano, organ, guitar, drums, trumpet, viola, base violin, hand drums, and many years of classical violin. I love music — listening to it as well as playing it. Music’s my passion, my drive.
But my career — what I actually do for a living — is practicing health and wellness medicine, including orthopedics, biomechanics, and ergonomics. Through my pain practice and my extensive knowledge of fascia, I know what works. I’ve helped many talented performers heal from musician pain without the use of medications or invasive surgery.
These musicians have a new lease on life. They feel better, and they play great. Doing what you love doesn’t have to kill you.
A Failure of Convention: The Downside of Drugs & Surgery
Conventional medicine generally tries to diagnose these issues through x-rays and various scan studies. These may show joint and ligament issues, and also inflammation issues. And while these tests often become the basis for diagnosis and treatment, they are essentially blind to spotting the real issue.
Musician pain can be experienced through a variety of conditions: De Quervain’s tenosynovitis, thoracic outlet syndrome, carpal tunnel syndrome, or repetitive stress injury, tendonitis or nerve compression. The pain is generally attributed to inflammation, arthritis, muscle, ligament, or joint issues.
Here’s the thing — fascia is at the root of these issues. And most of the fascia injury causing pain is not revealed by x-ray, MRI, and CT studies.
Fascia Pain: The Root Cause of Musician Pain
Fascia is the tissue that holds your body together, surrounding every cell, muscle, bone, organ, and more. It is often called “soft tissue.”
Almost all pain in the body involves injury to fascia and resolving almost all pain in the body requires significant healing of injured fascia. This is often also true no matter how long or how severe has been the pain.
What’s more, treatment does not require drugs or conventional surgery. The pain is called myofascial pain, what comes from injuries to muscle and fascia.
It’s like a guitar that’s out of tune. It doesn’t matter if you hit all the right notes, it’s all wrong. You’ll never get a good sound until you have an ear for what’s really going on.
A Healing Touch
To really understand what’s happening, to become in sync with the root of these pain issues, you need TOUCH. It’s as good as a musician’s ear for diagnosing what’s out of tune.
Unfortunately, medical people are not taught how to touch, nor taught what that touch might mean. In fact, people can undergo extensive surgery, and not truly be “touched” by the doctor, or at least not in any way that promotes healing or even understanding of the problem at the root of the pain.
Fortunately, there’s a better way — and it’s less invasive and complicated than surgeries or drugs.
A Holistic Approach to Musician Pain
At our health and wellness center, we approach pain differently, more naturally and holistically. And this can mean all the difference when it comes to treating musician injury.
Our treatment may include:
- Better nutrition, avoid inflammatory foods
- Herbal medicine
- Myofascial release
- Prolotherapy
- Prolozone
- Trigger point injection
And in some cases we may also do noninvasive needle surgery with platelet rich plasma, exosomes, and stem cells.
Want to play pain free, discover a new way to enjoy and create music that’s better on your joints and tendons? If what you’re doing for healing isn’t working, we can help. Call today and arrange to see me, Dr. Blatman, at my office in Cincinnati, Manhattan, Seattle, or now by telemedicine.
Let’s get your body back in tune. You’ll feel better, and you’ll play better. Live a better life, and become the best musician you can be.