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Took a year break from the hobby, returned last week. Whitin 5 minutes of painting with a resonable firm grip on the hairbrush, i had noticable pains in my index finger and thumb.
Paused until the pain had gone away, returned, held the brush in a loose grip, still pain in both fingers after 5 mins. I am using the same brushes that i used a year ago, aka thin handle and i never experienced finger pain while painting back then.

Any clues folks to why i experience pain in my fingers, and how i can overcome it in order to get back to painting?

What's your age, and how active are you, if they are not too forward a question to ask?
My experience with pain, from multiple musculoskeletal injuries is that it's usually caused by weakness. Not in the macho sense, but in an actual physical sense, that a weakness somewhere causes pain in movements or positions elsewhere. In the case of fingers, these are controlled by tendons which attach to the muscles in the forearm. It's likely these that are the weakness that needs correcting. There are a number of forearm and grip exercises you can do. I would recommend anyone get a decent set of grippers and learn to use them. I use captains of crush up to level 2, but the trainer version is fine for general strength. An elastic band looped around your fingers and thumb pinched together can provide resistance for digit abduction strength. Simply loop the band round enough so it provides resistance when you open up your fingers and thumb. Scrunching up a bit of paper using just one hand, these are all good exercises. You can also do pinch holds, where you pinch something of suitable weight in your hands and hold it until it drops. Aim to increase the amount of time for the same weight over time. Wrist curls are another forearm builder. If your really want to build forearm strength, knock yourself up a forearm roller and use that. These should hopefully start to build up finger and forearm strength and should stop you feeling pain when using your painting grip

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
Took a year break from the hobby, returned last week. Whitin 5 minutes of painting with a resonable firm grip on the hairbrush, i had noticable pains in my index finger and thumb.
Paused until the pain had gone away, returned, held the brush in a loose grip, still pain in both fingers after 5 mins. I am using the same brushes that i used a year ago, aka thin handle and i never experienced finger pain while painting back then.

Any clues folks to why i experience pain in my fingers, and how i can overcome it in order to get back to painting?

It's could be carpal tunnel syndrome, or that your finger and wrist muscles just aren't used to that kind of work now - pen and pencil use has dropped dramatically, which used to provide most of us with that type of exercise naturally.

If it's just strengthening your grip, you can use some form of hand exerciser; I've used gel eggs in the past which helped, which can be used for whole grip and individual finger/thumb squeezes.

However, in my case these days it's carpal tunnel syndrome in my main hand where the median nerve passes through a narrow space in the wrist ligaments and is a bit compressed, as I work a desk all day. This causes numbness, pain and weakness of grip in the thumb and index fingers. Hand exercisers don't really help, and can make it worse as the problem is the nerve compression, not the muscles.

So if you experience numbness or tingling as well, or pain in those fingers when you're not gripping things, it's worth getting checked out. The same feeling in the little finger side of the hand is a similar problem but different nerve (the ulnar, and cubital tunnel syndrome). Mild cases of carpal tunnel can be improved by wearing a wrist brace at night, and specific stretching exercises, as well as adjusting computer and pen use, as well as types of manual labour or playing an instrument. In severe cases it may need minor surgery, but it tends to develop slowly so it's usually treatable without that.

As a coping mechanism when painting, you can use thicker handled brushes, like the triangular army painter ones or ones with a bigger bulge which I find take less effort to grip and hence less pain and numbness. You can also try adding a silicone or foam pencil grip tube to your existing brushes, though it can be a bit of a challenge to get them to stay in place as they tend to be a bit wide for standard brush handles (I use a dab of copydex).

You should go to a doctor and get it checked out if it's causing you enough pain that would prevent you from holding a paintbrush.

Internet forum on toy soldiers is no place to get medical advices.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
What's your age, and how active are you, if they are not too forward a question to ask?
My experience with pain, from multiple musculoskeletal injuries is that it's usually caused by weakness. Not in the macho sense, but in an actual physical sense, that a weakness somewhere causes pain in movements or positions elsewhere. In the case of fingers, these are controlled by tendons which attach to the muscles in the forearm. It's likely these that are the weakness that needs correcting. There are a number of forearm and grip exercises you can do. I would recommend anyone get a decent set of grippers and learn to use them. I use captains of crush up to level 2, but the trainer version is fine for general strength. An elastic band looped around your fingers and thumb pinched together can provide resistance for digit abduction strength. Simply loop the band round enough so it provides resistance when you open up your fingers and thumb. Scrunching up a bit of paper using just one hand, these are all good exercises. You can also do pinch holds, where you pinch something of suitable weight in your hands and hold it until it drops. Aim to increase the amount of time for the same weight over time. Wrist curls are another forearm builder. If your really want to build forearm strength, knock yourself up a forearm roller and use that. These should hopefully start to build up finger and forearm strength and should stop you feeling pain when using your painting grip

end of 30s
not fit but i do pushups every day for the past 4 years for everyday functionality.

The fact that i have no pain in the fingers while i attend my part time job (bicycle service shop, aka heavy on hand activity) means that i doubt i have an injury or illness. But i did paint on a weekly basis until my break a year ago. Could the tendons and muscles used for gripping a paintbrush, loose all of its strenght in a year??

I`ll admit, i have not used an ink pen in nearly 3 years now...

I've always had issues holding something in the same way for a long time. It's not a strength issue, it's an issue with holding the same position with light muscle exertion.

I overcome it by making sure I'm moving my hands around constantly and only holding still when I absolutely need to be still, but it still massively limits how long my painting sessions can be and is a nightmare for airbrushing.

But that's related to other health problems I have and it's been an issue even when I was younger. If I were in your position and couldn't fix it easily with some minor strength exercising I would be seeing a doctor about it (as useless as I think general practitioners tend to be...).

That is strange, it seems odd that someone regularly using hand tools would experience something like that, however, not using that specific finger/thumb pinch grip could lead to a loss of mobility and strength in that particular position, which could lead to pain, and doing grip/forearm strengthening can only help so I would still advise doing some of that every now and then to keep good functionality for the day job.

As for doctors, well my advice would be to bin them off. They usually just tell you useless bs like to 'rest it' or stretch, or (even worse)painkillers. Most of them know nothing about actually fixing musculoskeletal issues and care even less.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:


As for doctors, well my advice would be to bin them off. They usually just tell you useless bs like to 'rest it' or stretch, or (even worse)painkillers. Most of them know nothing about actually fixing musculoskeletal issues and care even less.

I wouldn't write of the medical profession so quickly. An assessment from an orthopedic specialist and then a referral for OT would probably yield more concrete results than a Q&A on Dakka.

Not in my experience. I've had only one good physio in 10 years of various musculoskeletal injuries brought on by an active military lifestyle, and since then I've rehabbed them all myself by focusing on strengthening weaknesses that are actually causing the injury, instead of 'taking ibuprofen for a week' like the docs say. They aren't all bad, and I guess a diagnosis from them might be helpful as to solving the issue, you'll likely just have to ignore their treatment suggestions and find your own.

 JoshInJapan wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:


As for doctors, well my advice would be to bin them off. They usually just tell you useless bs like to 'rest it' or stretch, or (even worse)painkillers. Most of them know nothing about actually fixing musculoskeletal issues and care even less.

I wouldn't write of the medical profession so quickly. An assessment from an orthopedic specialist and then a referral for OT would probably yield more concrete results than a Q&A on Dakka.

Not sure about Britain and NHS, but in America...

1) It can be a touch pricey to see a GP, even with insurance, and can take weeks to months to get in for less-than-emergencies.

2) Minor stuff like this gets ignored if there's ANYTHING else that can be brought up (weight and diet being the most commonly obsession of American GPs).

3) Which means getting a recommendation to see an orthopedic specialist is highly unlikely.

4) And while seeing a specialist WITH insurance isn't exactly cheap either, especially if he has to do tests or get MRI/ultrasounds done - these cost extra in America,,,

5) Going to see one without a recommendation from a GP is EXTREMELY expensive, as without a recommendation your insurance won't cover it no matter WHAT the specialist discovers.

Welcome to American health (no-)care.

If you don’t want to go straight to the doctor there a number of tools for building grip strength available on Amazon. Specifically for gym goers and guitarists. Also you can get these gyro ball things that are good for wrist strength I think. It’s hard to know where the problem is. If you are a regular gym goer there are lots of exercises you can Google for building grip strength.

It could also be a tightening of the ligaments so some mobility exercises for your hands, wrists and forearms might be beneficial, you can Find these on YouTube mostly aimed at people doing Olympic lifting, but it all applies.

What else are you doing that might impact your hands? Could you have RSI from keyboard use? I recently did some DIY that involved a lot of hammering and my hand occasionally hurt for about a week after.

The main thing is Don’t force it, over do it and make the situation worse

Lacrosse/Squash balls also make for good cheap alternative to the crush strength exercisers.

How are your hands for holding a pen/pencil or writing for extended periods?

 Afrodactyl wrote:
Lacrosse/Squash balls also make for good cheap alternative to the crush strength exercisers.

How are your hands for holding a pen/pencil or writing for extended periods?

Dont know, as said i have not used an inkpen in about 3 years, pencil i have not used since child school. Downside of the digital life we live in, all writing is done via keyboards, index fingertip or buttons now in my city.

I took a rubber band around my fingers and pushed the fingers out for about 1 min yesterday on each hand, about 2 mins after i stopped my forarm was hurting and burning for another 2 mins, so i belive now it is loss of finger strenght. odd to me as i use hand tools 3-4 days a week whitout any issues.

I will look around the youtube for some mobility exercises for the hands, do that for 1-2 weeks, if there is no improvement, GP is next.

Thanks for the insight everyone =)

Even so, most hand tools don't require that much specific finger strength. Everything is so ergonomic nowadays, and things like spanners and hammers only require a basic grip. It's only things like watch makers screwdrivers, fine plier work and the like that require a little more dexterity. That said, most people's weakness will be in finger abduction, as it's just not something that's used for anything specific. I actually had a mallet finger injury a few years ago after playing volleyball. One of the rare occasions that extended rest of the injury was necessary, but since it healed I've made sure to work on the strength of my finger extensor tendons.

 FrozenDwarf wrote:

 Afrodactyl wrote:
Lacrosse/Squash balls also make for good cheap alternative to the crush strength exercisers.

How are your hands for holding a pen/pencil or writing for extended periods?

Dont know, as said i have not used an inkpen in about 3 years, pencil i have not used since child school. Downside of the digital life we live in, all writing is done via keyboards, index fingertip or buttons now in my city.

I took a rubber band around my fingers and pushed the fingers out for about 1 min yesterday on each hand, about 2 mins after i stopped my forarm was hurting and burning for another 2 mins, so i belive now it is loss of finger strenght. odd to me as i use hand tools 3-4 days a week whitout any issues.

I will look around the youtube for some mobility exercises for the hands, do that for 1-2 weeks, if there is no improvement, GP is next.

Thanks for the insight everyone =)

Yeah, a precision pinch grip uses your muscles in a different way than a whole hand 'spanner' grip. It is interesting with my twins how one just can't quite do a proper pencil grip yet, she hasn't got the fine control (or patience) for it, so keeps reverting to a fist grip, while the other has adopted it fine.

Hopefully some light exercise of that grip type will help and it's nothing more!

 Vulcan wrote:

 JoshInJapan wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:


As for doctors, well my advice would be to bin them off. They usually just tell you useless bs like to 'rest it' or stretch, or (even worse)painkillers. Most of them know nothing about actually fixing musculoskeletal issues and care even less.

I wouldn't write of the medical profession so quickly. An assessment from an orthopedic specialist and then a referral for OT would probably yield more concrete results than a Q&A on Dakka.

Not sure about Britain and NHS, but in America...

1) It can be a touch pricey to see a GP, even with insurance, and can take weeks to months to get in for less-than-emergencies.

2) Minor stuff like this gets ignored if there's ANYTHING else that can be brought up (weight and diet being the most commonly obsession of American GPs).

3) Which means getting a recommendation to see an orthopedic specialist is highly unlikely.

4) And while seeing a specialist WITH insurance isn't exactly cheap either, especially if he has to do tests or get MRI/ultrasounds done - these cost extra in America,,,

5) Going to see one without a recommendation from a GP is EXTREMELY expensive, as without a recommendation your insurance won't cover it no matter WHAT the specialist discovers.

Welcome to American health (no-)care.

If it makes you feel better, the GPs I've seen here in Oz also don't give a crap about minor stuff, but I guess at least I only have to wait a few days for an appointment.

The reason I say ask a doctor is because Dwarf said he works in a bicycle repair shop using his hands a lot, so there might be an issue beyond "hands not strong enough". Though I also recommend doing a lot of your own research outside of the doctors because of the sheer volume of terrible advice I've personally gotten from doctors.

Using a body part a lot doesn't equate to strength though, that's the issue. I concur on all the rest.