Tingling Fingers?

pirouette

Member
Does anyone suffer from swollen and tingling sensation in their fingers after sailing for 2 successive days? I am 56 and it may be a by-product of age but I'll be damned if I am giving up sailing Lasers.

I first experienced it a couple of years ago after about the 3rd day at Rick White's seminar. My roommate said he had the same problem and our solution was to lay in bed face down with each hand sumberged in buckets of water and ice. The tingling would wake you in the middle of the night and by the following week the finger tips had swollen so much that the outer layers of skin would crack and peel. Eventually the symptom went away.

It happened again 2 weekends ago after sailing a regatta in Bristol and the next day frost biting in Newport. Sure enough wakes me up Sunday and Monday nights and for most of last week - tingling in fingers, numb little finger tips, and then last Sunday frost biting at Cottage Park in Boston and little fingers swollen and slightly numb.

I use full fingers gloves but they of course have no padding and small diameter mainsheet (Rooster) which I know from talking with occupational therapists is a sure formula for problems.

I was going to go see a physical therapist to see if there were some exercises I could do to ?? strengthen my grip if that is the issue but before I go that route I thought I would ask you folks.

I saw my regular doctor today for it and he said it may also be a matter of building more flexibility in my tendons and slowly building those elements up. He ruled out any evidence of carpal tunnel syndrome. Part of the problem may be that Laser saiilng is NOT something I have been doing since a teenager so my body is trying to perform at top level but hasn't built up to it gradually.

Any ideas, exercise suggestions, equipment changes? A larger mainsheet has the obvious performance drawbacks. Padded full finger gloves ? do they exist? Be more macho? If I see a P.T. and get a solution I'll post it on the forum for others
 
I got this when I started sailing again - though not as severe. I was seeing a physio about my back at the time and I asked her about it. She thought it was related to compression in the shoulder joints from hunched hiking and sheeting. She gave me some streching exercises (put your hands behind your head and pull elbows back) and told me to do these whilst sailing!! If I do these after sailing I don't seem to have problems. Good luck!
 
A few years back I had some finger circulation problems.
1. Cold weather is a problem for me. I have gone to full fingered neoprene gloves. The grip sucks but the hands work after sailing and that is more important than how well I play.
2. Wrapping lines around the hands or fingers cuts off circulation and probably hurts the hands. I noticed some hand damages a few years ago when I grew a fatty lump on the back of each pinky finger. My solution was to never wrap a line around my hand period. The lumps went away. Of course I cannot pull as hard or hold on as well but see Number one.
3. Some of the things we do while we are sailing hurt. Having your hands hurt takes your mind off your thighs...or vice versa. You really need to be aware of all the pains your body is experiencing. Some of those pains are real important warning signals....especially for old farts like us.. Safety and longevity of your sailing career says you should modify your sailing so it does not hurt.
Getting yourself in better shape will help you hurt less. Doing better by tolerating more pain is probably not a real good idea.

Great athlete quote to support me? I cannot quote him precisely but lance Armstrong trained without shoving himself to painful levels to get back in shape after his cancer trreatments. He has since said his trainer had revolutionary concepts that debunked the no pain no gain training style. So what might a 7 time tour du France winner have to tell the rest of us?

UNsupported theory? I suspect you swelled up your hands by cutting off the circulation and by making them do bad things when the feeling was too dulled by lack of oxygen to tell you how much you were hurting yourself.

Supported theory? My wife is a physiology teacher. I bet she would tell me the above theory is crap from the ignorant psychology major boat repair man.
 
I too experience numbness/tingling in my pinky and ring fingers after sailing in heay air for extended periods of time. I believe that the conditon is called paresthesias. You can look up the symptoms and diagnosis here: http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/sym/tingling.htm


It seems that the numbness/tingling comes from entrappement of, or pressure on, the peripheral nerves in the fingers. This can also be described as a peripheral neuropathy.


http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/p/peripheral_neuropathy/symptoms.htm


http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/peripheralneuropathy/detail_peripheralneuropathy.htm


Keeping the main sheet in tight when going to weather seems to put the most pressure on my fingers which, for me, seems to result in the numbness/tingling in my fingers. When it is blowing I try and keep the sheet more in my palm or on the pads of my palm than in my fingers. When it is really nuking I try to use the cleat to completely aliveiate the pressure on my fingers. Using the cleat is not ideal but it does help with the pain.
 
My hands used to ache after sailing multiple days but now I don't seem to have that problem any more. Years ago I added a Frederiksen block to my laser which helps me hold the mainsheet and I use the full finger Sticky Race Gloves by Ronstan. Both of these help me hold the mainsheet but it did not completely solve the problem. I think over time my hands have gotten stronger since they no longer hurt after a heavy air day of sailing. I also bought an IsoFlex stress ball that I squeeze occasionally, but not as much as I used to.
 

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