Tendinitis or chronic injuries from drumming

Patz

Senior Member
Two years of nagging foot pain in one of the small ligaments where the leg meets the foot, I was diagnosed with tendinitis and physical therapy has helped. I've got the problem in my other foot but it's more mild so it wasn't addressed in PT.

I thought it was related to running (which I've barely done since it all started) but I started to suspect it's from playing drums. I googled drumming injuries and it mentions entrapment of the muscles within the sheath caused by scar tissue and "debris" (I don't know what debris the body would be giving off..lol). This is exactly how they treated it in PT. Every visit I got gentle scraping and they were surprised how rough and bumpy the whole area was.

All this correlates pretty well with me joining a band. The pain started about a year after joining. It ramped up my playing time (at that particular point in my life) from a few times a month to 90 minutes twice a week, plus a bit of at-home. I really have never noticed pain in that area after playing, so I'm guessing the increased exercise (during that first year) exacerbated it and caused the swelling and eventual nerve pressure, and at its peak the pain was, in brief spurts, bad enough that I couldn't put weight on it.

So, what I'm wondering is..has anyone dealt with an injury like this from playing? How have you treated it? How long did it last? Have you ended up with any other chronic issues? I wonder that, if I can get it fully under control, I'll have to be scraping and icing this forever. I had never even considered long term issues arising from playing drums.
 
I am sure this thread will give you a ton of responses, so here is mine. I had an MRI on my shoulder about a year ago due to some pain I was experiencing. My doctor told me that it looks like a 40 year old major league pitcher in there. I have a partially torn rotator cuff, the sheath that keep the shoulder in the socket is worn down and I have a bunch of scar tissue. He said these are most likely repetitive motion injuries from playing the drums, because it turns out I am not a major league pitcher. I have been to physical therapy a couple of times for the torn rotator cuff, and each time physical therapy and abstaining from playing the drums for a couple of weeks stops the pain for a few months. Inevitably I will need to get surgery and repair it, but I will be off the kit for several months and that is not an option right now.
 
quite a few injury threads around

I had tendonitis from my 4th shoulder op due to the physio over-stretching it during rehab.

Ultra-sound works well against it, as does ice.

However, I went kayaking in the ardeche and that completely killed both shoulders. Diagnosed by doctors, physios and osteopaths - tendonitis had set in, yet it wouldn't go away.

The way I stopped it was to stop cracking my shoulders when they hurt. If I crack my knee or my hip, it feels better, but in the shoulder it doesn't work like that and kept impinging on my tendons, prolonging the tendonitis.

As i say with all drummer injuries, go see an osteopath and they'll get you going in the right direction
 
Who else out there has great big calluses on the back of their thighs from the edge of the drum throne digging into them?
 
Who else out there has great big calluses on the back of their thighs from the edge of the drum throne digging into them?

LOL.

Definitely no big callouses on the back of my thighs. Try sitting a bit more forward, or invest in a bicycle style seat?
 
LOL.

Definitely no big callouses on the back of my thighs. Try sitting a bit more forward, or invest in a bicycle style seat?

These are left over from several thrones ago, when I had a round one. They just never went away!
 
Going to the doctor today to get the results of an x-ray done on my right wrist. It's been messed up for years, but is getting really bad now. I'm sure drumming had something to do with it and now work is exacerbating it.
 
I used to play bare footed (or with just socks) and developed severe pain in my right big toe. As I also have gout, at first I thought I was having an attack even though it's been years. Rest, ice, and ibuprofen helped it go away. Then, I started wearing lightweight shoes and didn't have any problems. Practiced for an hour barefooted again, and the pain returned. I may not be a rocket scientist, but it didn't take one to figure out what was causing the pain. I guess kinda like a football player's "turf toe".

Now after 3 hours of hard rehearsal the other night, both shoulders were pretty sore for a couple of days, but not bad enough for medical attention (yet).
 
I used to play bare footed (or with just socks) and developed severe pain in my right big toe. As I also have gout, at first I thought I was having an attack even though it's been years. Rest, ice, and ibuprofen helped it go away. Then, I started wearing lightweight shoes and didn't have any problems. Practiced for an hour barefooted again, and the pain returned. I may not be a rocket scientist, but it didn't take one to figure out what was causing the pain. I guess kinda like a football player's "turf toe".

Now after 3 hours of hard rehearsal the other night, both shoulders were pretty sore for a couple of days, but not bad enough for medical attention (yet).

I've actually bruised the bottom of my foot on my kick pedal a few times. Once when messing about at home without shoes, and another time just wearing shoes that were worn down and didn't have much sole left.
 
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