I haven't gotten pain from piping, but I made bread yesterday and had to knead the bread for 20 minutes and it caused me great pain in my wrists.
If you continue to do what you're doing, you may develop carpal tunnel. You might want to do some internet research about how to avoid/treat it. It can be debilitating. Good luck! As for me, I'm not kneading any more bread.
There are things the doctor can prescribe for tendonitis. I got tendonitis in my arm from being a cashier and was put on arthritis meds and given a splint that I had to wear to sleep. I made a job change and got better pretty quickly...not what you want to do probably, so seeing the doc would be a good idea.
I have arthritis and use a support glove or a wrist support you can get one at save-on or walgreens,this is the reason I don't do cakes as bussines, pipping one cake it's not easy I end up with swolen hands and back, but I love to make cakes,
Hi Mashmellow,
I'm a physiotherapist, i get a lot of patients who have same problem like yours, i actually had a symptoms from kneading fondant, if you want to IM me i can send you exercises and stretches you can do to avoid having carpal tunnel syndrome! cheers!
Emmashur12
My problem is in my hands, apparently caused by an inflamed tendon that runs across the top of the hands right under the bottom finger joint (I think that's what the doc said). He told me to give my hands a parrafin bath for an hour every night for a month. My life being what it is, that's not gonna happen. Any other suggestions?
I have tendonitis. Filed a workers comp claim for it. If you decorate a lot its most likely going to happen. Over the course of 2 years Ive decorated approx. 5,000 cakes. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze at a million miles an hour for 8 hours a day, yeah. I got a brace that Im supposed to wear 24 hours a day. Impossible to decorate with. I sleep with it and it helps. I was also prescribed anti-inflamatories. Im not totally sure if that is helping. The Dr. says resting it is the only way to help it. I have worked with a few decorators that had to change their jobs because the pain was too bad.
When I decorate a lot, I get shooting burning-type pains from my fingers to my elbow. Sometimes my arm tingles like its falling asleep and ive dropped stuff before because of it. One day I couldnt even hold my spatula. I tried frosting leftie. lol. Not too good. I havent even decorated a cake in a week now since I was laid off and it still hurts. I think it always will, and from what the Dr. told me, it doesnt really ever go away unless you stop doing any repetitve movement with it. He told me I would have to stop decorating. HA. Fat chance. Ill wear my brace and take the anti-inflamatories and keep doing this until I cant anymore. 
I have Cupital Tunnel Syndrome in both arms, kinda like carpal tunnel but different nerves and fingers that are affected.
I wear support braces on my arms and hands at night and do exercises daily to stop the tingling and numbness and pain from being too bad.
@ Mariana if you find the time to do the parafin bath at night, do it, it really is a wonderful thing. Dip your hands then wrap in plastic bags and towels and sit for 30mins your hands will thanks you, it gives a really deep heat and eases alot of pain. If you can't do that try wearing the arthritis heat wraps for your hands during the day, they work well too to give constant heat
Thanks for the suggestion, dutchy1971. I'll look for the heat wraps. It sounds more doable. And I know you (and my doctor) are right about the paraffin baths, but I get home from work so late, I'm often asleep before I even realize it. Doing something in the daytime and while I'm moving around sounds like a better proposition. Actually, right now it's not painful, just bothersome: when I straighten out my fingers, some of them get stuck halfway. But I want to do more decorating, not less, as time goes by, so I guess I'll follow all this good advice!
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