Knitting Injured -- Don't Do It!

I would like to preface this post by saying that I'm not a doctor. (Shocker, right?) Please don't listen to my medical advice or do what I do. Always go see your doctor when experiencing pain like I am about to describe, unless you're me, in which case you're (I'm) just going to self-diagnose with WebMD and Google because you're (I'm) uninsured.

Thus ends the disclaimer, by the way. Jen = not a doctor, if you're part of the TL;DR camp.

You may remember back in May when I went to WEBS and didn't buy anything? I also hurt my hand, which I attributed to knitting with cotton and driving, so I took a hiatus from knitting. Except I'm not really sure how much of a hiatus I actually took, since that post is dated May 3rd and my Ravelry project page says I finished the hat on May 27th. And then I started my Gaenor shawl on May 28th.

To recap, I am still having difficulty putting weight on my left hand, so obviously I didn't take enough of a hiatus (and starting a shawl probably wasn't a great idea either). I never realized how often I put weight on my hands. It is now difficult to do such things as:

-push myself out of my chair
-push myself up in bed
-close the trash can lid properly
-push-ups (are you noticing a trend with the word "push" here?)
-get down from the windowsill at work by leaning on equipment (maybe don't tell my boss I do that)

I looked up my symptoms (DON'T DO THAT! Go to a doctor. Okay, I think I've legally covered my butt here. Carry on.) and a lot of sites suggest carpal tunnel syndrome. I don't think I have that because there's no pain or tingling, just an inability to put weight on the hand.

I can knit just fine. I can carry the vacuum in my left hand. I can do a lot of things I'd rather not be able to do, actually, like take the trash out and scrub the toilet. How inconvenient, this injury.

Anyway, my best guess is that it's some kind of Repetitive Stress Injury and I was a naughty girl and didn't rest my hand enough and now I'm paying for it. (Except not with money, because I don't have insurance.) Paying with my BODY.

I knit English, by the way, which is why I'm a little confused that it's my LEFT hand that hurts. But who knows?

I'm 25, and that's too young to have a hobby put on the sidelines because I was too stupid and "worked through" the problem, so now I have to take a serious, real hiatus from knitting. This is so serious I'm debating making a ticker for it because I might have difficulty counting to July 15th.

But really. At least four weeks of no:

-knitting
-crocheting

That was kind of a small list, actually. I plan on weaving in the ends on my Gaenor and blocking it, which ought to be interesting because I tend to lean on my hand while blocking. Note to self: don't do that. Because collapsing on a bunch of t-pins will probably hurt.

And you don't have insurance.

And WebMD probably can't help you with that.

But I bet Google can.