I'll apologise to smokeyjoe, now that his cookie is back, but with some reservations...

Glad what you did worked for you. As a qualified trained person, I say the idea of "breaking thru" pain is not given much credence, other than VERY MINOR aspects thus: building up the human body DOES require a LITTLE pain - you regularly go to the point where the body is at its limit, then back off.

Weight lifting, for example, only makes the muscles stronger BECAUSE you have done sufficient stress to cause slight damage at the micro level, so the body heals stronger. Keeping it up too long with out rest periods causes "overtraining" which is detrimental - but I think we're getting a bit beyond the scope of this discussion.

Also: you were very lucky that human skin sheds, and the glue thus eventually let go, as well as the fact that nails grow fairly slowly, other wise you would have had even more serious problems, which I won't go into here....

The 'scam' thing was in another BS thread, don't remember details of which one now, didn't expect it was you that posted.

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If I did overreact, I only wanted to make Ebbie stop and think with out the "macho push ahead at all costs" idea. It seems to have worked. :-)

Cortisone "works" by shutting things down when the body is in crisis, _sometimes_ necrosis (tissue death) can occur - Gurney's response was very sensible...

Thomas the Rhymer's (and similar) suggestions are very good.

You break the cyle of damage due to Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) by either stopping, or modifying the muscle/tendon/joint action, especially after some rest, to start/promote healing.

Looking at the instrument (checking the height of the action, etc), and looking at things such as playing the chords in different fingerings, etc, are VERY GOOD suggestions.

The diet ideas are good too. Vitamin C, E and some others (see someone with more precise knowledge than me!) help healing, and can help the body resist the further effects of RSI, once you have healed.

Relax and hang in there - sorry about putting a damper on you celebrating your birthday, but a little care taken now will stop a lot of pain later - maybe just a few minutes playing MIGHT not do you any great harm, but if you don't want to stop playing when you have a few drinks, then hiding the guitar might be the best solution for now... :-)

If people thought I was suggesting COMPLETE immobolity, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that - for God's sake don't do anything really stupid like putting it in plaster - that will only make things worse by giving you rigid scar tissue that even surgery is unlikely to assist.

You DO need "gentle movement within the limits of pain" - some gentle stretching "within the limits of pain" will limit the formation of scar tissue. But I can't help you on here, - you need "hands on" contact with someone who really knows what is going on - a Chiro may be able to help.

Just don't carried away to extremes...

Now you just need some TIME to allow healing...

Don't get too depressed, that doesn't help either...

My best warmest positive thoughts are with you.

Robin