I have been diagnosed with CuTS in left and right arms. I am contemplating surgery soon. I have played the oboe semi-professionally for 40 years. Are there any other musicians out there with similar problems who could chime in?

This probably won't help much but I'm a pro guitar player and have been battling CuTS for several years now. It comprises my playing to a degree and I have to battle through the pain but I won't do any surgery until the pain is unbearable. Surgery seems like an absolute last resort. I've heard over and over that things can go wrong during surgery, the surgery isn't a cure especially if you go back to the habits that got you in trouble in the first place. i do arm splints at night, take tons of b vitamins, play through the pain and if I ABSOLUTELY have to I'll take anti inflammatories, but only sparingly. My 2 cents.

oh, also, stay hydrated while playing, no soda or alcohol (tough for a bar band guitarist like me but I only drink water) watch tension, posture etc. etc.

also, oboe, nice! i played bassoon for 10 years in school! double reeds rock!

Hello, fellow musicians!

Intro:
I'm playing the guitar(at least I used to). Haven't played since May hoping not aggrevate the symptoms which I initially supspected to be tendonitis. At first the arm just felt heavy, weird & clumsy - I didn't have the right feel to my playing. Then somebody told me to try out doing really slow shoulder-rolls many times a day to relief the muscles in the arms. After doing this a couple of days I began to experince occasional tingling in the ringfinger and pinky, which indicated that the ulnar nerve could be the problem. I then tried out some ulnar nerve-stretches I found. Apparently the nerve might have been stuck somewhere along it's path, since the sensations just got stronger doing the stretches and eventually the tingling became constant. I now have had it for over a month. So my guess is that I overstretced/irritated the nerve when I did the "smart" stretches.. Fortunately I only have light pain yet. Trying to get throught the day (and night) not bending my elbow too much.

So,ghardy, are you playing the oboe at all now? Strat_2000 don't you feel the the symptoms are getting a lot worse when you're playing? I'm just dieing to start playing the guitar again.It can really get me down sometimes