the mysterious wrist ache

I mentioned before that my wrist was hurting. I was hoping beyond hope that it wasn't due to my knitting, because that would mean I'd have to make the tough decision of to give up knitting (or at least take a break from it) or to injure my joints even more. But I've had several spells where I've gone without knitting for at a couple days in a row, and it doesn't seem to have affected my wrist pain at all.

So a second hypothesis was that hockey was doing it. I had first noticed my wrist hurting while I was playing in a hockey game. I hold my goalie stick in my right hand, and it's sort of an unnatural thing. But I've been playing hockey for a long time, and I don't think I have a new way to hold the stick that would be aggravating the wrist any more than it would have the past 10 years.

Hypothesis three: work. Two sub-hypotheses at work: pipetting (a pipettor is this thing that sucks up given amounts of liquid, allowing you to transfer the liquid from one thing to another) and shaking out ELISA plates, which I had to do a lot of around the time the wrist started hurting OR using the computer, mostly the mouse because I had to do that A LOT for the same experiment involving the ELISA. This is still a possibility, but even when I rested the wrist from these activities for a weekend, the pain was still there.

Another hypothesis is driving. I drive a manual shift car, and I have been driving a lot lately. But it's been long-distance driving, which doesn't require a lot of shifting. Maybe holding onto the steering wheel, but again - it's never been a problem before, and I've had plenty of driving-a-lot periods.

Today, though, I think I might have figured out the problem. I was walking to the bus stop, toting all the stuff I need for a day at work...purse...lunch...knitting bag...and office supplies I had purchased over the weekend. The office supplies aren't part of my normal load, but I realized that I was holding the bag on my right forearm, along with my knitting bag. That's the knitting bag's normal position (like this. I don't know quite where I picked up that habit, but it's only been in the past two months. Since then, I've walked out of no less than two stores and arrived at my car only to find that I had the shopping basket I had been using still balanced...on my right forearm. Hmmmm...I wonder...

The balancing-bags-and-baskets hypothesis is in the lead now. I'll see what happens when I cease and desist this habit. In the meantime, I'm also going to look into buying wrist supports for the computer at work as well as a brace. I read in I think Cooking Light that the pain of carpal tunnel can be reduced by wearing a brace at night, and I've heard many a knitter do the same thing. I really hope it all gets 100% better...and soon!