I play matched grip, closed hand but loose.  For some reason, no matter how loose, I get this weird pain in my thumb.  At performances, practices, and warm-ups I notice it occurs when I shoot the moon to go faster and it just sucks!  I wonder if it’s either the way i’m holding it, or if it’s just a weak finger, or maybe matched grip just comes with tension naturally.

Does anyone share the same or similar type of problem?  plz, any advice is worth enjoying development in speed without the fear of a potential hospital bill. 

Yours truly,

Gunnar Drummin’ Jesus!

Hi Gunnar,

I’m not qualified to diagnose your problem, although I have also experienced pain in my thumbs from time to time. There was a period a couple years ago when my left thumb hurt constantly, even when I wasn’t playing drums, so I made an appointment with my doctor to try to get to the bottom of it. He said that I had mild arthritis and suggested that I simply take ibuprofen, which actually did help. Eventually, the pain seemed to subside and I stopped taking pain relievers. It still does flare up every once in a while, but has never been as bad as it was during those couple weeks of nonstop pain.

Here’s an article about thumb pain written by our columnist Luga Podesta M.D.:

http://www.drummagazine.com/features/post/health-tips-my-achy-thumbs/

If the pain continues, I will be glad to ask Luga to respond to you on in the Forum, although I suspect he would need more info. But the best thing you can do is to go to your doctor and let him or her inspect it in person.

Good luck!

thx for the reply Andy!  that helped with relating to an extent but yeah maybe talking to the dude would be good.  My doctor did all of this and she couldn’t find anything wrong, it might be the way I grip the stick cause if i go faster with my hands, my right fulcrum ends up giving out and dying when i got this intricate part coming up.  hmmmm this is very interesting for me lol