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When you crochet for long periods of time, you may find your fingers, hands, and wrists are a little sore or strained. If you’re at all like me, that might make you wonder, “Can crocheting cause arthritis?” That led me to do some digging.
The good news is that crocheting cannot cause arthritis. Many crocheters with arthritis actually report that crocheting helps them maintain mobility in their hands and joint. If you find your fingers and joints hurt after crocheting for extended periods, the best thing to do is loosen your grip on the crochet hook and take more frequent breaks to stretch your fingers and hands.
Can Crocheting Cause Rheumatoid Arthritis?
Crocheting cannot cause Rheumatoid Arthritis, as it is an autoimmune disease. With rheumatoid arthritis, your body’s immune system attacks your joints, causing pain and inflammation. This can eventually lead to damage to the cartilage and bones within the joint. Because it’s your body’s immune system doing the damage with this type of arthritis, it’s not possible to get rheumatoid arthritis from crocheting.
Can Crocheting Cause Osteoarthritis?
Crocheting cannot cause Osteoarthritis on its own. Osteoarthritis is caused by wear on a joint’s cartilage over years. This type of wear isn’t really possible from average crocheting activities. Joints are designed to stand up to movement like this, especially because crocheting isn’t an activity that requires much strain or impact on your joints.
How to Relieve Finger, Hand, or Wrist Pain While Crocheting
While crocheting can’t cause arthritis, you still may find your fingers, hands, or wrists sore after a while. If that is the case, you should try to take more frequent breaks to stretch your hands and fingers and rest them. You should also try loosening your grip on your crochet hook, as gripping it too tightly can make your hands and fingers sore.
Like with any other activity that involves movement, the repetitive motion of crocheting doesn’t give you a chance to change your movements, which can result in a repetitive strain injury. It’s important to make sure that you’re taking breaks to stand, stretch, and give your hands a rest at least once an hour.
If you find that doing hand stretches and resting your hands frequently isn’t making the pain stop, you may have already overexerted your muscles, tendons, and joints. In this case, its best to take a couple of days off from crocheting until they aren’t sore anymore. When you resume crocheting, try to take breaks frequently to ensure you don’t injure yourself again.
Ergonomic Crochet Hooks and Handles
Another way to relieve your finger, hand, and joint pain while crocheting is to use a more ergonomic hook, or place an ergonomic grip on hooks you already own. Regular crochet handles are very thin and usually made of a hard material such as metal. Gripping it for extended periods can cause soreness or strain. Ergonomic handles help make the crochet hook thicker and and a better shape to hold for longer periods.
If you’d like to keep using your existing hooks, you’re probably best off getting an ergonomic handle you can put them in, such as the Boye Ergonomic Crochet Hook Handle. With this handle, you can insert your existing hooks.
Alternatively, you might prefer getting a new set of ergonomic crochet hooks. If that’s the case, we recommend taking a look at this set of LOOEN Ergonomic Crochet Hooks. This set includes a whopping 17 ergonomic crochet hooks, along with a carrying case for them packed with 38 other handy accessories.
