Give yourself a Hand

Today's post is all about our hands......

if there is way to keep our hands nimble, I'd like to know. I shudder, literally, when I think about not being able to knit someday.....
oops, there I go again. Catastrophizing....
I'm sure all the Monopoly games I played as a child had an effect on me...
GO TO JAIL, GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL, DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT 200.00.
Landing anywhere near that space made me nervous.....everything could change in an instant....

Where was I ? Oh, what if we couldn't knit.
So if there's a way to keep my hands going I want to know.

I read up on hands last night. There are no muscles in your fingers. Lots of tendons, but no muscles. There are 123 ligaments however, in our hands. There are 29 major and minor bones and ...ouch
48 nerves.

By the time we get to the 75 to 79 year old age group, 90% of women will have osteoarthritis.
(this is depressing eh?)

If you want to worry about now and not later, well then 1/3 of all ER injuries involve the upper extremities. AND 2/3 of all accidents to hands occur before retirement....

I suppose we can comfort ourselves with glucosamine and chondroitin tablets and hope for the best. Then again, the cost of those babies is nearly the price of a decent skein of yarn...

I think this is where I am supposed to be living in the moment......

I read we are supposed to release our grip every 15 minutes. I do put my knitting down about every half an hour for ...well a snack of some sort......honestly...

I can say this:

My hands take a beating in the nursing profression and the winters here are enough to make your hands crack and bleed by November.....

I have some Burt's Bees Milk and Honey Body lotion. It goes on a bit watery and has a smell I can put up with but don't relish.

I also have some KISS MY FACE in lavender. It goes on watery too, but leaves you with a very light coating. I love the smell.

I find wearing gloves on the really large side helps me at work too. All that pulling on of tight gloves and pulling off literally hurts my hands.

I also find that good old Vaseline coated on my hands and covered with socks brings much needed relief to cracked skin.

Could you give me a hand? What are your secrets???

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