“The crazy thing is, I hurt in the morning, and then at work I am fine!”
Of course. They stiffen up overnight, then you warm out of it as the day goes on.
“Maybe it’s the old wisdom that tendons need a few month to condition to work…”
Probable, still I might be concerned about your long term soundness if you continue to use your hands hard. Back in my 20s, when I was a racehorse groom, my hands acted like yours. Now, it’s a few decades later and I kept doing work my hands didn’t like. Now I’ve got some arthritis and bone spurs in some finger joints. They were telling me back then that they would not stand up to hard use. I wish I would have listened better!
Or, maybe your hands just need to get accustomed to their new workload.
Say, do you have hypermobile fingers (aka double jointed) at all? Do they reverse bend back at the knuckles when stretch your fingers out with tension? A fair number of women do. I have them to a small degree. They don’t hold up as well as regular fingers usually. They suffer more wear and tear due to the increased range of motion and joint laxity. I was looking for a good photo to link for you but all the ones I found have pretty extreme examples which you probably don’t relate to. There are all degrees of hypermobility/double jointedness.
I’d ice at night to get rid of some of the inflammation. Motrin is an anti-inflammatory so that may help. I’d Voltaren gel (prescription) a few times a day, also.
I’ve worked in medicine for a long time (including years in orthopedics), just FYI, in addition to having to try to patch my many bad body parts, including hands.
Feel better & best wishes!! Please update and let me know how it is going.
Oh, and I’d add in a liquid glucosamine/chondroitin/msm supplement to help things now and as a preventative. Costco has a good one. The liquid one is absorbed more easily than the pills they say.
