Finger pain what can I do ?

I have been playing guitar for about 6 monthes now. I try to play at least 2 hours everyday. I noticed at first that after playing for awhile I would begin to get grooves in the ends of my fingers from bending, sliding, and just generally fretting the strings. I assumed that this was normal and that after awhile my fingers would toughen up and this would stop but it hasn't. Sometimes it gets to the point where I have to stop playing because it hurts to fret the strings, or I cannot even press the string all the way into the fretboard because of the grooves and my tone suffers horribly. It is especially bad on my index and middle fingers, but dependent on what kind of music I am playing I get them on my ring and pinky fingers as well. Is there anything that I can do to make this stop or am I just going to have to deal with it?

Thanks,
Sandman

You gots to deal with it ....
I just went back to playing after about a 3 week break & my fingers are killing me after just a couple of songs. It's gonna take about another week before I'm back to normal again. All you can do is keep pushing yourself till you build up the callouses, deaded the nerves and get used to it. Even then anÊintense playing session can screw you up for a couple of days.

As weird as it sounds you should try to cut down on your playing a little. Your fingers need a chance to heal up before they can calouse. Perhaps if you take a day or two off each week (for just a month or two) your fingers would improve.

Everyone's fingers get sore when they first start out, but if you've been playing two hours a day for six months, they shoudln't still be hurting. I think you should take a break for a bit, because you don't want to mess yourself up so that you can't play at all. Uncomfort is natural but if it's genuine pain than something isn't right. My opinion... I'm not a doctor. :)

Actually since I posted this they have gotten better because i realized something after I posted.... sometimes I would get busy or whatever and just not have time and I wouldn't play for a couple of days.... and since I realized that and have made it a point to play every day no matter what and it has slackened up quite a bit. It still gets to the point where they hurt sometime but that is generally just my cue to quit playing. I got the KWSBand Live On songbook for Christmas and so I've been trying to learn that whole thing and have been playing up to 4 to 5 hours a day with no problems now because I do it every single day without fail.

Another thing... if you're going to be doing any rigorous shredding or anything of that nature, warm your wrists/fingers up first. Do some good stretches, make sure to get the blood flowin' there.

i have the same kinda problems and ive been playing for 2 and a half years now cept it isnt my fingers is the base of my thumb, and below my pinky finger... but it always starts like ten minutes into playing and lasts for about 20 minutes, then i just get used to it and play anyway, anyone know what causes this????? thx rob

One thing that's pretty cool to use are those chemical reaction hand-warmer things that stay warm for hours. You can sometimes find em on sale in bulk for about $20 for 50 pairs of em.
If you wanna warm up your fingers you just rip off the plastic pouch and stick one in a pocket...
When you're playing you can slip your hand into your pocket between songs and it's kinda like running your fingers under warm water without getting em all wet & sticky.

When we are first starting on the guitar, for the first few momnths that is, we are so excited with learning various techniques that the whole experience can be rather overwhelming, (and sometimes painful.) Practice slowly, although we are sometimes impatient in the very beginning, (its important to try and maintain a strong level of patience otherwise you arent going to get very far in the long run. Its rather normal for your fingers to hurt for the few few months (to a certain extent that is,) but be sure to practice new complex techniques very slowly (and only for a little while at a time especially if you have small hands. Remember to warm up your fingers properly before you get into certain excerises that you arent very familiar with, hey even several years after i firest pick up my instrument I'm still rather meticyulous where I dont want to take any chances of permanently damaging my fingers.

Learning guitar, Its a gradual process, just learn a little bit at a time and enjoy yourself.

-Joseph :)