I'd love to hear from anyone who's dealt with this. Around about August I started getting pain in my right (picking hand) wrist that kind've spread up to the middle of my lower point of my palm and often along pinky-side of my wrist. Also, I'd get pain on the top of my forearm and the top of my hand. No tingling, no numbness, no pain waking me up at night, no noticeable weakness and most of the finger pain was in the pinky, so i'm pretty sure it's not carpal tunnel. My guess is either ulnar tunnel or just wrist tendonitis. I've taken a week off from playing here and there since then, during which I would also keep up a steady consumption of Advil and Alleve. Also switched from using my mouse with my right hand to my left. There's actually an orthopedic group a few miles up the road in Baltimore that specializes in hand injuries suffered by musicians. When Frank Solivan had carpal tunnel surgery, I'm pretty sure that's where he went. I'm calling tomorrow to make an appointment. Being home-bound for so much time, maybe I've been woodshedding longer and harder these last few months. I also took up electric bass around March, which I was actually spending most of my time with from around April through June. However, with nice enough weather for the band to practice outside and socially distanced, as well as a handful of gigs, I've probably been playing about an hour of bass and maybe two hours of mando a day since the summer, minus a few weeks taken off completely here and there to see if the damn thing will just go away. Maybe my 45 year-old body is getting too old for that much woodshedding? :(
At any rate, if anyone has dealt with similar symptoms I'd love to hear your experiences. My guess is that I will eventually see an ortho, they will say it's tendonitis and to just wear a splint, spend a few weeks taking OTC NSAIDs, and stop playing for a few months...which I do not want to do but will likely do anyway because there probably isn't much of alternative but making it worse.