Musicians with Dystonia Bulletin Board

I've had a few breakthroughs in the last few days and I seem to be at the point now where I don't need any tension in my hands to keep the fingers where I want them when I'm practising. Hopefully this means I can go back to normal practice and playing. At least on piano. The cello takes a bit more strength than the piano so might need a bit more work before it's back to normal.

As far as the question of building new pathways or repairing old one goes I feel like I'm doing both I guess. I remember having a really sensitive touch on the piano that I imagine was the result of having a good balance between the opposing muscle groups in the hand. That feels like it's more or less returned. But my left hand was never particularly dexterous on the piano and now with all this practice it's pretty much as good as my right hand, better in some ways. So I guess they must be new skills being learned rather than old ones being rediscovered.

There are a few things that I've wanted to ask other people with dystonia about for a while:

I've heard people say that excessive practice of fast technical passages lead to fhd. I was never interested in playing as fast as possible but I was quite often unaware of what my fingers were doing when I was playing a passage from memory. For example I remember playing a passage for a teacher and when she asked me to slow it down I couldn't - I didn't know what notes I was playing because it was all happening through process memory. Is that an experience that other people with fhd have had?

Also, the main muscle with too much tone in my hand was the long flexor that goes from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. I think the movements that the other fingers make are just compensating for the middle finger. In hand dystonia is it always the long flexor digitorum that's hypertonic or is sometimes intrinsic hand muscles? Have other people looked into hand anatomy when they've been trying to figure fhd out or is that just my obsession?

I also had weakened intrinsic muscles, probably as a result of the hypertonic flexor digitorum taking up work that the smaller muscles would otherwise have done. The physio I saw recommended some exercises for the intrinsic hand muscles but they were very gentle and didn't do anything. Has anyone been given exercises that are specifically for the intrinsic muscles (lumbricals and interossei)?

Around the time my problems started I did some damage to my ulnar nerve (the funny bone one) that left half my left hand numb for a couple of weeks. For a while I blamed the problems on this nerve damage but the more I found out about it the less likely it seemed. Then when I was talking to my dystonic friend in Germany last year it turned out that she had damaged the same nerve and had the same numbness, but years before she developed dystonia. I imagine it's a coincidence but would be interested to know if other people with fhd have done ulnar nerve damage.

Clive, if you have time and it's not too painful a subject I'd be interested to hear how things got worse after they got better while you were working with Candia. I guess what I particularly want to know is whether there are any signs that I should be watching out for. I've come so far recently and I don't want to slide back again (so many people mention sliding back - Oliver Sacks in his latest book quotes Leon Fleisher as saying 'once a dystonic always a dystonic', but I really can't imagine things getting worse again). Also I'd be interested to hear what improvements you made at the piano. Is it the recent low-tension exercises that you've been doing on the piano or was that when you working with Candia?