In a new interview with Tone-Talk, legendary rock guitarist Jake E. Lee (OZZY OSBOURNE, BADLANDS, RED DRAGON CARTEL) was asked if he ended up getting surgery on his hands after it was reported earlier this year that he was suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome. He responded: “I did not. I thought I had carpal tunnel. I went to a neurologist, and they poked the needles in me and then zapped me. They said I had carpal tunnel. So then I made an appointment with a wrist surgeon, which took a while. I went there. She asked to see some X-rays, which nobody had ever done. She said, ‘Well, before we talk about surgery…’ She took X-rays, came back and said, ‘You don’t have carpal tunnel. You don’t have it. If anybody had taken an X-ray of your wrist, they would have seen you don’t have carpal tunnel.’ And apparently I don’t have any cartilage left in my right hand. She said I have very little in my left hand, but my left one doesn’t bother me. So it’s all bone on bone, rubbing against each other, and that’s agitating it. So, right now, I’m getting cortisone shots in the wrist — lots of fun — and physical therapy to get the muscles stronger around it, do a lot of stretching. It’s about pain management now. It’s either that or fuse the bones together, which I think Steve Morse did. And it will change your playing style. If you get this fused, now it’s all elbow — maybe fingers, I guess. Then I’ll get tennis elbow. So she said she recommends pain management. ‘Let’s see if we can get you playing without fusing the bones together,’ which sounds pretty radical. And it is better. I am playing again. For four or five years, I just really didn’t play that much, unless I had a song idea, which always happens when you’re falling asleep. And then I pick the guitar up and put the idea down. So I do have a bunch of ideas. I’ve been playing. It doesn’t hurt as much. I feel like everything’s getting better, so I’m not gonna get surgery. I’m just not. I’m not, I’ll learn how to play more from the elbow. But I still have that option with the wrist and manage the pain. But I am playing again — I have been for about two months maybe — and I wanna go out and do a tour. I wanna finish doing the ‘Patina’ tour, which got canceled because of COVID. I would like to go out and do that with RED DRAGON CARTEL, focus on the ‘Patina’ record and do some more recording. We’ll see where that goes.”