I discovered this amazing cast on that gives a beautiful hat edge. It does stretch the thumb. I overdid it and even though no pain or ache when doing the cast on, one morning I woke up to severe thumb pain. So now tendinitis and no knitting for the last month and forseeable. This is not for sympathy, in fact I truly do not want any. Jokes would be fine. 
I am 65 so this may not be a problem for young knitters.
I just wanted to forewarn you who love this method to not overdo it.
Iāve been doing long tail for years and itās my go to cast on. What were you doing before? Hope your thumb heals quickly!
I was using the knitted cast on taught to me by my mom
When I was 23. Never even knew there were different methods.
Thx!
I have only ever been taught by my mum to cast on using two needles.
There are a ton of cast on methods. Check the videos at the top of the page for a few of them.
Will do. Thanks!
@Bluejaygirl5 I am 52 and often use the long tail cat on with no pain. You have me wondering if you were stretching your thumb away from your fingers? (Like a finger pistol impersonation?)
Relax your hand and curl both thumb and finger to look like the letter C.
But do wait until your doctor tells you that you are cleared to return to āworkā.
Thank you. I was following a video that showed the thumb
Stretched out. Oddly not uncomfortable in any way. Live and learn!
I discovered the cable cast on and really like the result. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFkYejFGwsI
Thank you Ellee!
I know about pain in the thumbs as that is where my hands used to hurt and I could not knit or crochet for a great long while. I decided to look at how to heal my hands by seeing which foods might trigger arthritis and were troubling me. Fortunately, I hit on what was my problem right away: it was milk and dairy. Iāve had trouble with this before but not my joints. Didnāt think it could be that as it is supposed to be good with calcium and all that. Plant milks can have as much and even more calcium than milk. I am sensitive to the protein in milk, not the lactose which they claim. It is the calcium which can accumulate in joints as the body lacks the enzyme which baby calves have, to digest it.
I tried all the milk alternatives and found one I liked and have several I can use for different reasons like cooking mashed potatoes I like with coconut milk. Almond has a lot of calcium, but coconut milk works best for me for just about everything. I started with sweetened flavor and now I can drink it plain. They even make coconut yogurt with the same kind of probiotics as dairy yogurt. And there is ice cream. Well, sort of. It is now too sweet for me, unless I cut it with unsweetened coconut yogurt. And it has to be zapped a few seconds in the microwave as it is lower in fat.
Since my gallbladder surgery, no way am I eating cheese even though I have enzymes which are supposed to help. I know when I have eaten wrong and get a pain in my ribs. Like now after eating too much Chinese food.
It will pass. But I do miss pizza, but not enough to get sick. It is a lot worse than over doing it with Chinese food, so Iāve heard.
The method of doing your own elimination diet is easy, pick the food you think is potentially a problem and stick with it several weeks. Usually if you are going to get relief, youāll know it in one month. Iāve found (since I am 64 and passed menopause) that I am more sensitive to not only milk, but artificial sweeteners too. I break out in hives from Splenda, aka āSucraloseā. Who knew. They also make many people more hungry (like me). Aspartame gives me leg cramps (and I donāt like the taste of that one). But Splenda did taste just like sugar. Iāll eat an apple, makes nothing hurt. It is better for me to be able to do and I like what I eat still so it is easy to do. But I didnāt switch everything immediately.
I also limit how much bread I eat now, because I donāt burn as many calories.
I am not big on wanting to take a pill for everything unless there is no other way.
I wish you all the best and hope you find something that helps you. For all the stiffness for my fingers to feel normal again, took me about six months, and then I learned a bunch of knitting styles so I could switch styles, even knitting backwards. I also had incentive, I wanted to knit a new daughter-in-law a wedding shawl.
My strategy worked for me, my joints are normal-sized again.
Never lose hope of getting well and READ! Sorry I am verbose, I mean no harm and I hope something will help you.
Thank you Sallybode for your thoughtful reply. I hope many will read it. I have been vegetarian for 20 yrs and 99.9% vegan for many years. I have not had milk for 10+ yrs. Seems my issue is overuse and holding my thumb in a way it was not used toā¦the long tail cast on method. Plus the xray showed some arthritisā¦my first.
Due to animal suffering I havenāt eaten meat in 20 yrs, which ended up saving my life according to my cardiologist.
So knitting will be different methods and for shorter periods.
Thank you again.
I donāt eat dairy because of lactose intolerance unless itās a lactose free type. I also usually eat a low carb diet. I started LC to lose weight and a side benefit I discovered was less arthritis pain. Turns out low carb is often anti-inflammatory. So basically this means I eat low sugar, low gluten, low dairy and avoid carby foods in general and high fat. Vegetarian/vegan diets often still contain sugar and flours and sometimes dairy so they can be inflammatory. You must do what works for you though.