Finger pain and skin peeling

[Raven Gates]

I always had a problem with my fingers. The skin is too sensitive and it peels really easy when I’m playing, and it hurts so much. I’ve been playing the violin for some time, and this problem slowed down my progress, because I simply couldn’t stand to play on the next day. I have the same problem with guitar, and I’m afraid this will have the same effect on my playing. Is there a way to fix sensitive skin? It normally takes around 20 minutes playing for my skin to peel. It doesn’t look really bad when peeling, but it turns slide into torture

 

[Lewis Blake]

How long have you been playing?

 

[idssdi]

How long have you been playing? Usually at the start this stuff happens and when you develop some calluses it gets a lot better!

 

[Matt Wildman]

Or how long has it been since you have changed strings? Sharp old strings can make playing very painful

 

[Jak Angelescu]

You are definitely not alone! This was actually a problem of mine so badly that I had a sit-down with Alex Skolnick of Testament to talk about it because it was making my playing difficult. A lot of people have mentioned callus buildup and ultimately I think that’s the biggest contribution. As someone above mentioned, dull and old strings will be a pain to play with. But depending on how long you play a day, unfortunately sometimes you have to keep playing through it. There are many different layers of skin our bodies have. And I used to play until the fingertips would shred and then I would use fingernail clippers to clip off the excess skin. Although it hurt badly I usually would just turn to gentle acoustic chords and strumming just a to build up the under skin that was revealed. Just know that you’re not alone and it’s very common. The more you play the better it will get. I actually got so frustrated with it at one point I turned to playing nothing but acoustic guitar to build them up. I also had a nice fluffy cat to rub my sore fingers on some of that can also be from improper finger placement on the string or how you approach a certain part. That was a problem of mine. Keep us informed on your progress!

 

[Daniel Sobota]

Jak, you’ve had a sit down with Alex Skolnick? Lucky…

 

[Jen Hapke]

This is something I guess everybody goes through. Sometimes I got blisters from pull offs and I didn’t notice it until I was wondering why the strings got wet. I think the first year is really bad. Sometimes the problem reappears because of keeping the hands in water for a long timespan.
I used to ignore the pain most time and now I have no problem at all.
But maybe you have very very sensitive skin. You could try out fingertip protectors. I don’t know anything about them but they were mentioned here https://syngates.com/forums/topic/remedies-for-finger-pain/

 

[Jak Angelescu]

@DanielSobota I use to work for a rehearsal space in Hollywood and so it was mandatory I went to NAMM a couple of times. My boss said “Go meet him and take the afternoon off” since Alex was such a big thing for me So I got to sit down with him after a demonstration and talk guitar stuff. It was pretty wonderful!

 

[Daniel Sobota]

Damn, that’s awesome! Did you meet any other guitar heroes?

 

[Jak Angelescu]

@daniel Oh gosh I’m not sure if I can recall all of them. I didn’t meet a whole lot. Joe Satriani, Uli Jon Roth, Dave Mustaine, Alex Skolnick (of course), Slash, Herman Li…. I think that was all of them I got to meet. I went for two years almost a decade ago so it’s kind of rough to recall them all.

 

[Daniel Sobota]

Well, you’ve met a lot more of them than I did, that’s for sure lol.
But that must have been a great experience to meet all those legends…

 

[Calvin Phillips]

its funny, because I still get this too when I take a week or two off playing. Your skin heals fast. So once you take a break, you basically have to rebuild what healed back if that makes sense. Even if its 5 minutes a day, I’d say just try to pick up the guitar more and more as you start to feel better again. Jak’s torn skin story makes me laugh because thats happened to me more then once too, and its usually cause the blister popped after playing lol

 

[Raven Gates]

I’m so sorry for not answering sooner. But I have an update: sadly, it got worse. It actually bleeds if I don’t stop playing after it peels. But I decided to continue learning even like that. My love for music is greater than any pain I could feel.

 

[Filip Tomiša]

You should get those guitar finger protectors if it’s that serious. You don’t want to ruin your fingers

 

[Raven Gates]

Already tried them, actually… But I couldn’t get used to them. It felt like I could barely move my fingers…

 

[Filip Tomiša]

Then maybe you should put a little bit of glue on your fingers. I’m not sure if that would work but you can try

 

[Raven Gates]

I will try it later thanks, dude

 

[Raven Gates]

Thanks for your tips, man
I’m currently using 0.10 strings
I’ve heard that calluses help with pain, but never thought about using super glue to simulate it… Couldn’t try it myself, but it seems really interesting.

 

[Jake Young]

I posted..but for some reason I can’t see it? But switching to 9’s would probably help a bit..I’ve used 10s the last couple years..but they can feel quite tight..especially to someone just getting started and if you have a longer scale guitar

 

[Raven Gates]

I was using 9 ’til last week, and I have noticed that my fingers don’t hurt as much with 10. It still hurts af, but it just feels more comfortable…