I have tendonitis, which apparently is one step below carpal tunnel?(or so I've been told, while I've had it awhile I haven't done much research)

Started when I was a teenager. When my wrists start getting really painful I wear a wrist brace to keep my wrist from moving too much and sometimes have to take long breaks otherwise my joints swell up. It manages the pain to wear a brace and has kept me from getting any worse. To my knowledge at least.

But I would get it checked out if you are worried about it :) I hope it's nothing bad! Might just be overworking your wrists with repetitive tasks?

maybe! I have no real knowledge of wrist pain stuff. I'd be doing a lot of research now if I had the time

thanks for sharing! I'll probably pick up a brace if it continues, and see a doctor if it keeps up after my workload goes down

Oh and this! Almost forgot about it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUyMNyrOHJQ

There are some stretches he shows there that I've been doing that have helped me with my pain that may help you as well :)

Just happy to help. Wrist pain is the worst when you need them for basically everything! xD

oh cool thanks for the link, I'll check it out after I get some sleep. I was meaning to look up exercises anyways

My mom has carpal tunnel syndrome... her hands "fell asleep" since the nerve got smoshed because of the carpal tunnel being to small. I do not know if you can feel pain if you have it. All I know is that your hands fall asleep due to the constant pressure on your nervethread when your working. o.o

I just started making a tail about a week ago, and after three days I could feel sharp pains shooting down the tops of my hands and into my wrist... I took a break for a few days and wore some braces at night, and that seemed to help... but it really has me worried.

As artists, this is how we make a living. This is how we make our lives WORTH living. It horrifies me to think that, one day, I may not be able to do what I love doing. And I'm only 24 years old.

My best advice to you is to take frequent breaks, and try not to work yourself to the bone. Stock up on Tylenol or ibuprofen. Rest for a day or two if your hands get really bad, and maybe start sleeping with wrist braces on. Do some googling and research a few hand-stretches geared toward artists or seamstresses.

Hope it helps. I understand what you're going through and how frustrating / scary it can be :< ... Hang in there! You do marvelous work but you can't rush perfection! Don't forget to take care of yourself first :)

yeah the idea of having my hands/wrists be too painful to make things is terrifying. I'm a sculptor, need my hands :<

I get a pain in my drawing hand after doing a lot of drawing, or any lifting. I have to be careful at night, because I tend to sleep with that hand curled against my face. Try to not bend the wrist while lifting , use hot towels and rest if it is bothering you. Ginger root is supposed to help with the swelling, and has no side effects that I know of. I use Aleve too.

A few years back I had a god-awful mix of tendonitis, tenosynovitis and carpel tunnel in both my hands thanks to my crappy day job. What happened to me took nearly a year to go from "can barely do anything normal" back to as normal as I was ever going to get (I was lucky, mostly it's just aches in cool/damp weather). Whatever you do, don't let it get that bad! If there starts to be any pain shooting up your arm, or a feeling like elastics snapping, stop! That's a sign that you're approaching the knife-edge where it might start becoming permanent injury if you push too much further.

Frequent breaks are a must. There are a ton of stretches you can do during the breaks to help prevent repetitive strain. The one I was told about by one of my teachers at college was simple - put your arm out, bend at the elbow and put your hand like a traffic cop motioning to stop. Spread your fingers like you're palming a basketball. Slowly rotate you hand at the wrist for as long as you can stand it. Let your arm drop straight down at your side. You might feel a bit of a tingling sensation - I was told that that's the built-up fluids shifting.

Over-the-counter NSAID meds will help with any pain and swelling, but be sure to take them AFTER you're done for the day, as they'll block the pain and you could be injuring yourself worse by working while on them. Ice packs wrapped in a towel are good to put on it to help with swelling, but moist heat is good too. If you can find one of those home wax spas, they're great. Just dip your hand in the hot wax up to the wrist, coat a few times, put a plastic bag over it and wrap it with a towel or use the gloves that come with most of them. Wait 20 minutes or so, then take the wax off (you can toss it back in and reuse it if you make sure you wash your hands before starting). The hot wax was one of the therapies I was doing during the worst of my injury.

I would have never thought of the wax thing... a hot towel sounds nice too

and wow that must have been terrible for you! glad it's better now

I forgot to mention the lightweight hand supports too. The braces that others have mentioned are great for when you don't need much dexterity (just relaxing, sleeping), but there are "compression gloves" out there that give some support without having a solid bar bracing the hand to restrict movement. They're basically a fingerless spandex glove with a tensor wrap around the wrist. Walmart carries the compression gloves in two-packs with the tensor bandages and the like and they aren't too pricey. They're great to provide a little relief without hindering your usual movements - they even market this kind of thing to crafters for that very reason.

I think the worst part was knowing that permanent damage was highly likely, but not knowing how bad it was. Going to physio for months and seeing only baby steps in terms of improvement was frightening. But yeah, I count myself very lucky that I got off as lightly as I did.

I was getting bad wrist/hand pain, and it w going up my forearms. The hubby had me start drinking more water to keep hydrated, space out my sculpting so I have breaks in between instead of doing straight work for hours on end, and I've just begun doing martial arts wrist excersises. Sounds silly, but they really work to help keep my wrists loose and without pain....stretches out the muscles and tendons, conditions them to be stronger, and better able to take abuse.

Arnica oil is also good for muscle soreness, if you can find it at local health food stores. And yes, ginger is also helpful, as is skullcap, which helps calm muscle spasms.

I would always get wrist problems working at coffee shops for so many years. Some anti-inflammatory pills helped as well as wrist braces.

http://www.ten-o.com/Active-Wrap-Wrist-and-Hand,2505.html?b=d*14660

Also any brace that has wrist support and metal stabilizer is amazing. It holds your wrist slightly up and it feels great. I prefer something that does hold the palm and has a thumb hole, going to about mid-arm and is real thick and sturdy with adjustable straps. One for work that gives a little more mobility when you need it and one that gives a little less mobility. You could probably find a medical supply store to try some things on then look it up online for a cheaper price.

http://www.wristsupportbraces.com/

I had carpal tunnel syndrone in both wrists from drawing and sewing and eventually made worst by work. Got so bad that if I touched my left wrist a certain way I would get electric shocks. Wearing a brace at night does some help but you really have to restrict wrist movement even during the day to see benefits. So that means wearing braces all the time. It can get so bad that you can't sleep. My mother had her wrists get that bad. I actually did get the surgery on both wrists, it ended up being beneficial for me vs. the lazer treatment since I had so much scar tissue in my left wrist. Keep in mind I'm right handed. Should you consider this option it has a downtime of no less than 2 weeks. I took a month off work but they highly encouraged movement within two weeks of the surgery despite the discomfort. I had both wrists done at the same time and I don't regret it. It's easily been 4 years since my surgery and I handle everything as before just without pain.

oooouch that sounds terrible. I'm glad the surgery helped you!

I've had carpal tunnel since 2005 and in 2009 I had an exam to check my nerve responses and muscle density to see if they'd atrophied... Which is awesome, oh man! They stuff needles in your arm/palm in different locations and you flex against the needle as hard as you can, blood spurts out. :E

So the BIGGEST thing is taking breaks and correcting posture/positions to avoid it getting worse. Once you do damage that's it and all they can do is surgery to prevent more. You can wear a wrist brace, especially while sleeping, as people commonly curl their wrists while they sleep. The braces are less than $20 from wal-mart/walgreens/etc. Or you can wrap a folded towel around your arm and tape it while you sleep, whatever you can rig to keep your wrist strait. Taking breaks at the first tingle/numbness is important and daily stretches help. Also, keep an eye on ergonomics, observe how is your chair is placing you in relation to your work space and see if you're using your hands at weird angles. You can probably get a sense from changing positions if you have more/less problems or Google more about it.

Carpal tunnel is identifiable by what part of your hand gets weird, if it's centralized around your index finger, thumb, and going back to your elbow. It it starts at your elbow and goes to your pinky, it's tennis elbow which is a different pinched nerve and common for say, truckers who hang one arm out the window. I have that in my left arm and carpal tunnel in the right. Mine was super bad when I had a job that required lot of typing at a weird angle at a makeshift desk but even with how much I used my hands when I worked as a cook at the next job, it gradually improved. Maybe because I using a range of motion instead of the same repetitive one for hours on end?

I didn't enjoy that nerve test in the slightest. Good thing needles don't creep me out.

The needles were easier because it was just painful, the shocking part was weeeeeird!

I enjoyed the bragging rights from the needle test, I tortured my coworkers and customers with it. XD

You can get different kinds of braces to help you out. When I have a flare up I wear fingerless gloves meant for carpal tunnel. They're little spandex type compression things, you can get them sometimes at a drug store in the braces aisle, usually marked as typing gloves for carpal tunnel. I most recently found some at an art supply store in the knitting aisle. They don't have any firm pieces to them, so they tuck away into a purse for travel really well.

I also tend to wear magnetized hematite bracelets when I work, it tends to prevent the pain from showing up, and alleviates it when it does. Copper bracelets work nicely too but they turn green :p (some tomato sauce is supposed to clear that up but I never get around to cleaning them, so I stick with the hematite XD)

When I'm having bad flare ups, though, my doctor prescribed some stiff braces for when I go to sleep, to keep my wrists immobilized. Those are more helpful than I had expected, since it keeps me from crunching my wrists into bent up positions at night, and gives them time to heal up.

Also important, whatever you're up to, try to keep your hands lined up as straight to your forearms as possible. Working with your wrists bent is what aggravates things most.

Been struggling with that and a number of other wrist/arm/shoulder problems caused from overworking, and poor posture. Went though a bunch of test, and had surgery, which fixed some problems, but there is still more, and I now lack insurance. Taken breaks and doing stretches. This is really good.
http://youtu.be/hUyMNyrOHJQ
There are more out there, and I have built a little routine up. Its good to take breaks like every hour or so. Which is like, super fucking hard to do when your in the zone, and once you break it, picking it back up. I found that setting up my music out of reach, and having hour long playlist/albums running those, made it easy to break away from the art, to switch music, and do some stretches, jump back in. Another thing I found really helped was switching mouse hands.

I have some thing were my muscles tense up, and then don't release themselves. At first I was given muscles relaxers of all sorts, trying to find one that wouldn't just knock me out. The other option was botox injections, which was like, no, the cost of that was insane, more then surgery(insurance), and its temporary. My hands cramp up, and the knuckle of my pinky would swell up. The worst part about this is random muscles spasm while inking, and no being able to draw with the same dexterity I had before. However, this was for about a year and a half of suck, and the last year of getting into new habits, totally changing the way I draw, taking breaks, and stretching more regular. Still not perfect, but improving. There is a good chance I need more surgery, and I have been trying to get some form of insurance, downside to being freelance.

Hi I have both ish!

Breaks - necessity (i dont do this yet, which means I still have frequent problems)
Stretching - do thisss
Braces while you sleep/do anything you can with them on - this helped me a LOT when mine was bad, I should probably pick up another one cause i lost mine.
Naproxen/Aleve - I take this pretty much daily. I try to remember it before bed for sure so my tendons have time to repair

Aikido wrist stretches can be quite good (as long as you know you're not going to damage anything further obviously).

I've had tendonitis since I was 10. Braces are a wonderful thing, even though they limit wrist/hand movement. I have a pair of ACE ones with metal inside, they are so much better than plastic ones. Hmmmm....small stretches help, even things like when you have a hot cup of coffee/tea, just hold it with both hands and let the heat loosen up the tendons. Works well with cups of ice water too.

My doctor had me put a cabbage leaf in my wrist brace for a few hours, there is something in the cabbage that helps with inflammation. I didn't keep doing that though, it made my wrists feel like they were itchy on the inside. :/

I take Ibuprofen for the inflammation, although that can damage your stomach after a while.
For the most part, wearing braces and taking ~1/2 hour breaks every so often do the most good for me.

My hands hurt some times from overwork but I think it's more related to inflammation (caused by my allergies) than nerve issues. Perhaps yours is to. It's an aching in my hands and wrist rather than shooting pains down the arm.

I have a pair of pressure gloves made for arthritis and they seem to work. They offer some support and resistance with minimal dexterity loss.

try taking a small doseage of ibeprofine (sorry for my spelling) for inflamation, if the pain persists, it helps me.