I've been playing drums for about ten years and have recently started playing more long gigs (3+ hours, with breaks). Sometimes, as the night wears on, I'll get intense pain in one wrist; it's happened to both right and left, but never simultaneously. I've fallen into the habit of holding my sticks in something like a hammer grip (thumbnail facing up, palms in) and I am hoping that changing my grip to a proper matched grip (palms down) will help mitigate the pain.
Has anybody else had experience with this? Or does playing for that long inevitably lead to some pain?