I just realized I had a little moment of happiness this week... since taking up the guitar, my fingertips on my fretting hand, and to a lessser extent the edge of my thumb on my strumming hand (I usuallyvuse a plectrum) have been raw and burny and hurty, especially when I do the washing up or shower. Initially, I chalked it up to building callouses, but my fingertips just keep blistering, bursting, peeling, and starting again. The callouses never materialized. It's been relentless, and I've been playing through it, but it really hurts. And then I recalled that I have a nickel allergy/sensitivity, and did some cursory research... it's a thing, and there are nickel-free strings available. I told my husband I was thinking of buying some to try them next time we need to restring my guitar, and he immediately placed the order. We've had the set of strings waiting to go on for about a month.
Tuesday night, my husband was playing along to a [Pink] Floydian backing track and broke a string (bends, y'know). My guitar has a tremelo, so with the missing string, the tension went wonky and everything went out of tune, and my husband looked like a child who let go of his balloon. And I said, "Yay! Now we can try my nickel-free strings!"
So yesterday we put on my new strings, and it's probably psychosomatic, but immediately they felt better to me. Better days may be ahead!
