[medical] I'm past 100 on thumbnails and my hand is not doing great

I need to aggressively get back into excercise/stretching because that does seem to help, i'm just struggling to motivate myself to do that. The gym feels so far away (it's not THAT far, but you know...when you're unmotivated even a little bit feels like a lot)

If that doesn't help, i'm definitely going to have to start seriously considering surgical intervention. I've been dealing with this to varying degrees of severity for about two years now

which is absurd

I owe SO MUCH for physical therapy that didn't do nothing, but it also didn't really help that much either

I'm worried the same thing would happen even if i went a surgical route

the good thing is i talked to people who said recovery was much shorter than i anticipated and most of them said it seriously helped

It's not really something i would want to do while i'm working on my book...doing it after i'm done would be ideal

but that's also....a year and a half from now

I'm worried about the damage i could do to my arm/hand by working through the pain for that long

Right now, it's really, really hampering my ability to work

With breaks, icing it, and being careful about my set up/tools etc i can usually get an okay amount of work out of it. The past two days were worse though because the two before that i pushed it a little too hard.

so it's hard to stay consistent, i have to work TOO hard when it feels okay because when it doesn't, i'll fall behind

And this is just thumbnails!!

The demands on my drawing technique are minimal right now...it doesn't matter if i need to adjust my grip or draw a little sloppily to save my hand. But soon enough i'm going to, you know

have to draw

For real

IM REALLY ANNOYED BY ALL OF THIS

I never had any problems with my drawing hand until right before I finally got the dream job and now i'm being held back by a dumb injury

I'm sure it was caused by a combination of ipad, and holding my phone badly (the whole resting your hand on your pinky thing)

I would have been way more careful with both had i known

I have always been careful with drawing technique, and typing because i was afraid of carpal tunnel

little did i know cubital tunnel was sneaking around the corner

Also, in a less "work related" reality, it bums me out because when i'm not working, i have to aggressively rest my hand

everything from typing tags, to even like, playing animal crossing (or any video game but animal crossing isn't even a DEMANDING button press experience) exacerbates things

hand pain is the fucking worse im sorry yours is being so bad rn