When you're playing guitar and then all of a sudden you get a really sharp pain in your finger

and doesn’t go away for ages. It’s like you’ve got a microscopic bit of string shrapnel in your finger or your finger pressing on the string has irritated the nerve endings.

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THATS AMOREEEEEEEEEE

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Is it maybe being caused by the strings.
Due a change or try a different gauge.
Not had that kind of thing myself tbh.

What I do get tho is pain/cramp in my shoulder after sometimes even short playing times.

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Feels like being pricked with a pin about 1 pixel in diameter

I play super thin strings, 0.07’s because they were used a lot in the 60s and I have dainty little hands. Never any bother.

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I get that. Think it’s the nerves at the end of the fingertips as you say.

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Is it just when you play one particular guitar?
Same fingertip each time?

Could it be an issue with the fretboard like tiny splinters?

In terms of string gauge I go Ernie Ball slinky on the Les Paul and Tele.
Haven’t changed the strings on my main acoustic yet.
Stuck some medium gauge Ernie Ball Earth Woods on my backup acoustic - sounds great for alternate tunings and droney stuff but fuck me it’s like playing barbed wire if I’ve not used it in a while.

I love tiny thin strings, though I think my guitar is currently strung with 0.08s. Dunno why, just feels more like a guitar to me. I used to do a lot of switching between guitar and bass for live stuff and I found the switch between big ol’ bass strings and little guitar strings actually helped centre me on the instrument even more because it was like, ‘Oh, now we’re definitely playing guitar.’

In answer to the OP, I used to get this sometimes but then it stopped, and I have no idea why. Maybe like little tiny pinches or something in the skin, idk soz