Sports Injuries

Yesterday, I:

• had leftover clam chowder with a whole wheat English muffin for lunch with a Diet Coke;
• caved in and got a medium curly fries and a bottle of water from Jack n the Box on the way home;
• had cheese melted on toast for dinner;
• drank a couple shots of sake (I'm really doubting whether this stuff has alcohol in it or not!);
• called my little sister;
• rummaged through my knitting mags for baby patterns.

Today, I:

• skipped breakfast again. My bad.
• am drinking coffee in its most doctored manifestation;
• am wondering what to do about my hands.

I'm going to say something very obvious now, such as: "Hands are important." Especially my hands, thank you very much. I use them a lot. (And that is another understatement.) I spend about nine hours on a computer at work every day, and when I am not on the computer, I am knitting or crocheting or something else... handy. I'm 34 so I guess it's only expected that I might start to notice my body turning mutinous on me by doing things like having my hands swell up and display symptoms of CTS.

So, a bit of swelling today, even though my knitting and crocheting the past couple days has been minimum. (Four or five rows of 116s! That's all!) I have even been dragging my ass at work on the computer to give my hands a rest. But all to no real avail. My left wrist is killing me, and both hands are sore. It is really annoying. I already take breaks when knitting, but that doesn't seem to matter. Strangely enough, these left wrist flare ups have little to do with how much I am knitting. They come seemingly out of nowhere. Seriously. I have mainly been crocheting lately, and I have had plenty of times when I've whipped out a sweater in eight or nine days without so much as a whine from my hands. It's really inexplicable.

Salt could be a bit of a culprit still. Note those curly fries yesterday? Note the slight swelling I am feeling in both hands and forearms right now? True, the swelling feeling didn't start directly after the curly fries, but it was only last night, and I haven't really been doing anything different than usual. There is still some room for doubt. I need to get a bit more scientific about this.

I'm thinking I need to get a wrist brace. Or two. Continue to lay off the handicrafts as much as I can stand, do hand exercises, drink lots of water, and maybe even do something radical like try one of those allergy discovery diets where you're eating gruel or something 24/7 and then add things to see what you react to.

Any suggestions?