Wrists, neck, lower back, hips, ankles, eyes. HELP!

Hello,

I am a 29-year-old, professional musician (string bass player), and I have been struggling with wrist tendonitis for almost a year now. It has turned out to be a complicated injury that includes a calcified ligament, ganglion cysts, and possible cartilage tearing. Before this injury, I had done P90X to get/stay in shape, but since I can’t really use my hands, this is not possible. I also have tendonitis in my right ankle, and this prevents me from running. I learned about this when I tried to train for a marathon a couple years ago, even though I’m naturally a good distance runner. I did cross country in high school.

My girlfriend had been doing Bikram for 6 months and continually told me about the benefits. Since I don’t have many options for working out, I decided to give it a try. I did it almost every day for about two weeks until the injuries became too much. Can you please offer any advice for the following injuries? I’d like to keep doing Bikram, but I’m not sure if it’s right for me. Thanks in advance!

Neck – I have trouble bending my next backward, like in any type of back bend and the breathing exercise. It feels very unnatural like I probably shouldn’t be doing it. I would almost consider myself to have chronic neck pain. I currently sleep on a special neck pillow, but it doesn’t seem to help very much. I’m aware that I usually have bad posture on a daily basis, but I’ve been trying to correct this.

Lower back – All of the back bending and back strengthening postures REALLY hurt my lower back. It will even hurt for the rest of the day and when I wake up the next morning. I never go too far into any back bend. I wonder if it could be related to locking the knee/engaging the thigh/engaging the butt. Even Savasana hurts my lower back.

Hips – I have the tightest hips of anyone, and I think I’ve always been this way. It’s difficult for me to even sit Indian style. In tree pose, I can’t even come close to getting my hip in the right spot. I also can’t do spinal twist. I was told to put my leg out straight because I can’t even get close to doing it the correct way.

Ankles – In addition to having tight hips, I think I have tight ankles. My ankles cannot straighten out to make a straight line from the shin to the top of the foot, and I can’t even get it close. Because of this, I have extreme difficulty with anything sitting Japanese style. I can’t get my butt on the ground or anything. For the two weeks that I did Bikram, I pushed myself to try to increase the flexibility of my ankle joints. Nothing too crazy. I would go as deep as I could without pain, try to push a little more until I started to feel pain, and then ease off. It turns out I injured my ankles. It feels like they are both sprained, and it hurts to stretch them out or put weight on them. I’ve been trying to take it easy, but they are not better yet.

Eyes – I get blurry vision after every Bikram class. I don’t know if it’s because of the sweat dripping in my eyes or just from the heat/humidity. They would be blurry the rest of the day until I went to bed. I started using eye drops right after class, and that helped a lot. Why does this happen?

A little more about me: I’m a very critical person (most musicians have to be), so I’m generally aware of what the postures are supposed to look like and what I’m doing that’s matching or not. I’m usually a pretty tense person, too. I have fast reflexes but I’m easily startled or surprised. My girlfriend and I have gone over the postures several times at home for some extra practice. She has one of Bikram’s books. I’m taking this very seriously, but I’m having so many problems. Please help! Thanks! And please ask if you need any more information or information related to a specific posture.

Daniel