Knitting Aches: proper posture suggestions?

[rhiandmoi]

Along with what other people have said:

1. Put a pillow or two in your lap to hold your work higher so you don't tweak your neck. If you rest your elbows on the pillow that helps too.

2. Try to keep your hands in a straight line with your wrists. If you have to, wear a rigid wrist brace while you knit.

3. If it hurts stop. You can get permament damage, which would be very bad.

[april_cocaine]

I agree that circs are a big help. The weight of your project is on the cord, not your wrists. I only use straights if I'm working on something small and lightweight.

personally, i find working with circs much harder, and i often experience pain in my wrists when using them. i only feel comfortable using straights and i can knit for hours with them too.

[lupinbunny]

i had bad wrist/ shoulder pain. I learnt to knit continental (actually, i'm  a bastard-child knitter that mixes up regular, continental and knitting backwards at will. luckily my gauge doesn't seem to be affected). That helped quite a bit.

Also, i get more pain the larger the needles/ yarn are. So for me, fingering weight is nice and comfy.

Thirdly, I started seeing a chiro (unrelated - my boyfriend's sister was a trainee, who needed patients). She massaged my forearms and they bruised like mad! so next time i went she whipped out a little flat stone thing called a gua sha/ gwa sha. She put oil on my arms, then rubbed with this stone so hard that these little bright red pinpoint bruises came up. Hurts like hell at the time, but afterwards it was SOOOOO much less painful. so every week i got a gwa sha session, and after about a month she couldn't bring up any bruises anymore, and i wasn't in any pain.

Turns out gwa sha is an alternative Chinese therapy (thanks google), though its effects were never explained to me in the context of stirring up stagnant chi. i was just told that the stone allowed you to massage really hard, which increased bloodflow to the area (hence bruises) and the extra blood helped repair tiny little tears in muscles. worked really well for me.

[melosond]

I find stretching frequently helps. Lean your head side to side, forward and back, massage your neck with your hands. SNBN has a couple of stretch recommendations, too. The only one I can remember at the moment is reach your arm out in front of you, palm down. With your other hand press your fingers back, stretching out your palm and wrist. Not too much, though! Make circles with your wrists -- anything that hurts, stretch often!

Good luck!

[hoxierice]

And remember to keep your shoulders down, keeping your wrists and hands aligned for wrist pain. Anything you do should be done wit proper posture

[knittinfiasco]

i hold it that way too. does it seem like your fingers tire too quickly that way?

I grip them like handle bars (hand over the needles), all fingers supporting.  Most of my movement is from my indexes and thumbs.

No.  Are you forcing the needles through your stitches?

rhiandmoi,
I know an orthopaedic surgeon of 25+ years.  He has always said, if it's a joint injury, resting will heal it.  If your pain continues after resting, it's not an othropaedic problem, and you want to get checked out by the doctor for other health problems.

[kitschkween]

do all chiropractors do that? i would really like to try that!

i had bad wrist/ shoulder pain. I learnt to knit continental (actually, i'm  a bastard-child knitter that mixes up regular, continental and knitting backwards at will. luckily my gauge doesn't seem to be affected). That helped quite a bit.

Also, i get more pain the larger the needles/ yarn are. So for me, fingering weight is nice and comfy.

Thirdly, I started seeing a chiro (unrelated - my boyfriend's sister was a trainee, who needed patients). She massaged my forearms and they bruised like mad! so next time i went she whipped out a little flat stone thing called a gua sha/ gwa sha. She put oil on my arms, then rubbed with this stone so hard that these little bright red pinpoint bruises came up. Hurts like hell at the time, but afterwards it was SOOOOO much less painful. so every week i got a gwa sha session, and after about a month she couldn't bring up any bruises anymore, and i wasn't in any pain.

Turns out gwa sha is an alternative Chinese therapy (thanks google), though its effects were never explained to me in the context of stirring up stagnant chi. i was just told that the stone allowed you to massage really hard, which increased bloodflow to the area (hence bruises) and the extra blood helped repair tiny little tears in muscles. worked really well for me.

[kitschkween]

i'm not sure if i force through or not. how can you tell?

i hold it that way too. does it seem like your fingers tire too quickly that way?

I grip them like handle bars (hand over the needles), all fingers supporting.  Most of my movement is from my indexes and thumbs.

No.  Are you forcing the needles through your stitches?

rhiandmoi,
I know an orthopaedic surgeon of 25+ years.  He has always said, if it's a joint injury, resting will heal it.  If your pain continues after resting, it's not an othropaedic problem, and you want to get checked out by the doctor for other health problems.

[kitschkween]

you all have been so helpful. i ordered the Handeze gloves from Joanne's yesterday. I hope those and stretching will help.

[knittinfiasco]

For me, if I knit too tight, it's a struggle to get the second needle under the stitch, I might end up holding the stubborn stitch in place (thus the sore fingers--poking myself), and the color starts wearing off on the aluminum needles. 

There's an article on knitty.com about loosening up your knitting stylehttp://www.knitty.com/issuespring05/FEATloosenup.html.