Wrist Pain
Welcome to Wrist Pain, episode 52 of The Ordinary Knitter, the knitting podcast that’s (mostly) about the projects. My name is Heather and I’m @theordknitter on Twitter, @theordinaryknitter on Instagram and @ordinaryknitting on Ravelry.
This week: Pasadena progress (never gonna get old), being kind to wrists, planning short projects, and following up what I was saying about asking questions on Ravelry. This episode was meant to be out earlier in the week, but technology and life had other ideas. Thank you for all the listens – my listener figures have leapt recently, so I hope you’re all enjoying what you’re hearing.
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Wrist Pain
This can be, but shouldn’t be, an occupational hazard of knitting. Between the tiny reptitive movements, the tension in the arm and knitters’ desire to stay exactly where they are doing what they love doing most, it’s possible to do quite a lot of damage to the nuts and bolts in the arm, wrist, palm and fingers. Doing a little bit of research for this episode, I was horrified to discover that some knitters spend years managing their pain and others have had to take prolonged breaks – months at a time.
Of course it’s not just knitting we use our hands for, however much we might wish it was. As I talk about in this episode, hands and arms come under strain using a computer (that’s typing and using a mouse), using a smartphone, driving, cooking etc. Making changes to how I use a mouse and to how muych time I spend stretching my hand holding my phone has helped to reduce the tension in my arm, and I’ve definitely noticed an improvement. My hand and wrist are much more comfortable, but I still have to break up knitting into no more than 20 minutes to half an hour at a time. If I stick to the rules my arm plays ball, so for now I have to go with it.
Music credit:
“Carpe Diem” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/