Just a thought here. It may not apply, I hope it doesn't, but it may help someone who reads this thread in the future.
I suffered from extreme pain in my left hand. It was minor and i played through it, and it slowly got worse, and I cowboyed up and played through it and gradually it got so band I had to stop playing after only 30 minutes. Pain in the fingers and especially the back of the wrist. I thought I was soon to see the cessation of all mandolinning.
Entirely separate from that I got my yearly physical, and learned I had diabetes. Through medication and diet I corrected my blood sugar in a week or so, and all the pain in my left hand went away. Gone. Along with it I lost some aches and pains I would experience when standing from a sitting position. These had associated with getting old, but they all abruptly went away once my blood sugar was corrected.
Here I am many years later, and I can and do play as much as three or four hours at a jam without a break, ready to go at it again soon after.
My only point is that sometimes what you are going through has nothing to do with what you are going through, and be open to the idea that the solution is quite different from what simple logic seems to dictate. I dodged a bullet I am sure, and giving up mallomars, moon pies, mint chocolate chip ice cream has been almost worth it.
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