I am still experiencing the sharp pain in front of my hand when I do barre chords so I have stopped those temporarily to see what happens....I seem to have no flexibilty in the front of my hand and can barely do the stretches.
...BUT the thumb joint pain has almost disapeared.
Here are some of the things from your advice that helped:
-I went back to fundamantals and hold the hand stretches taught here in GT for one minute
-I bought several rubber balls and keep them around the house and in my car and sqeeze them often.
-still working on relaxing my death grip on the guitar.
-went to a physio and got a few ultra sound treatments to reduce inflamation.
....planning on checking out new guitars as per other advice from you.
I truly thank everyone for the help and advice.
cheers,
tracy