A few weeks ago I went to see my primary care physician for help with shortness of breath and joint pain. I totally scored! I walked out of there with a tetanus shot (fail), inhaled steroids to control my small airway disease (win) and an anti-inflammatory gel to put on my swollen, painful joints (huge win). What a difference to my life these new medications have made. I can breath! I can walk without pain! I can sleep through the night! This is huge, people. Take that Sjogren’s and scleroderma! Feeling so much better I began to spend more hours up and about, and there was a lot more knitting happening too.
Oops. Then this happened.
One of the problems of getting better is that swelling is going down and the tissue is tightening up on some of my joints. My knees are really tight. My wrists are stiff. When I knit my joints loosen, so I thought I was helping them stay flexible. That is probably true to a certain point, but I guess I now need to be careful to not overdo things. Sigh. I am using the tendons in my left hand the most since I knit continental, and I push the yarn over the needle with my middle finger for each purl stitch. I’m really fast that way, but my tendons have totally rebelled in my left hand and wrist. To make things worse I can’t take NSAIDS or any other anti-inflammatory drug because of my scleroderma-battered kidneys and stomach. Sigh. My doctor ordered a knitting hiatus.
I want to be a compliant patient, really I do. I read a couple of books, managed to get through a couple of days without knitting, and then I snapped. I must knit!! Want knit now!! Knit, knit, knit. Why go on if I can’t knit? Sniff. Obviously this is totally unacceptable and I am going to figure out how to knit in spite of this bad boy wrist. Really, my left hand is the one having trouble, so maybe I can work around that. I tried to tension the yarn in lots of creative ways before I remembered that lots of people on the planet hold the yarn in their right hands. English knitting. I have never mastered purling English style, but now I’m really motivated!
Last night I finished the stripes and am ready to enter the last section of garter eyelet. Yay. Knit all the way! I can do this! Then it is into the last, ribbed section of the wrap.
Ribbing. That is going to be slow going. I think that I will check out Norwegian purling. Somehow I need to do this without moving my fingers too much. Yay. A new stitch to learn.
I’m on it!
Take that, scleroderma. You are messing with the wrong knitter!!
Yarn, Books & Roses 
Oh a knitting hiatus would kill me! I hope your joints feel better soon!
It was horrible to hear my doctor insist that I needed to knock off the knitting. Ugh. After casting about for something else I could do (spinning, sewing, something…) I decided to try careful knitting in the brace. This is my first day out of the brace since it happened, but I’m going to put it back on so I can knit this evening. Best to be safe; also I’m afraid of my doctor!
Oh no!! I hope you heal quickly! But don’t over do or you’ll end up worse off than now:(
I’m better already! I am being careful because it was pretty painful…
Have you tried knitting backward, instead of turning and purling? I found a video by googling it. Of course, I dont remember which I found!
That is a good idea! I do know how to knit backwards for a bobble, I should try that! Thank you so much.
You need a knitting belt and double pointed needles. Seriously. It’s almost no wrist/hand movement, it’s just a little jump with your arm. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox-bEaVaKLs I have problems with tendonitis as well, especially when I knit two handed for Fair Isle on circulars so doing it with a knitting belt has changed my world.
I did try to figure out how to do something like that, but the number of stitches and lack of straight needles did me in. If things get worse I may have to look at buying something.
May your new techniques do the trick – eventually
It is.
So glad you have some new medications that are helping you out! But be patient with the strains and you will be back to full speed again sooner rather than later 🙂
It’s been 10 days and I’m sooo much better! What a relief that my wrist recovered so fast. Knitting is happening again, but carefully!!