What causes repetitive stress is when your playing posture or hand position(s) used in playing are forcing the body to do something it wasn't designed to do: poor posture, poor technique and overuse.

And repetitive stress was being diagnosed in musicians long time before in computer users. I first read about it -- and what was being done to treat it -- in Smithsonian magazine about 25 years ago.

A REALLY good book on the subject is Repetitive Strain Injury by Dr. Emil Pascarelli and Deborah Quilter. He was the subject of the Smithsonian article and the work he was doing was for musicians.

I've been through forearm tendonitis...not caused by poor posture (I was well taught) but by misplacement of the computer mouse which majorly stressed my right wrist. BTW, surgery usually leaves scar tissue which means therapy after surgery generally doesn't work. Also if you misuse your wrist (or whatever) after surgery, there's less likelihood of recovery from the strain.

Linn

Linn