I am pleased to report that time and [nearly] a week of not knitting has largely cleared up my thumb joint issue.
Can I get a big HURRAH!
Although I had declared myself to be a non-knitter for a week, I held out for only four days. Thank FSM, that seemed to be enough to heal most of the injury. I have been happily knitting ever since. There is still a little residual pain, but as long as I am not knitting something stupid, like the mittens below, it continues to improve.
During the hiatus I thought about what might have caused this pain and suffering. It did not take long to identify the culprit(s):
In particular, the mittens on the right, those nasty ones that didn’t match each other.
These are three of the items I knit for the local warm clothing drive in December. The yarn was O-Wool Balance Bulky, a 50/50 wool/cotton blend, and we all know what that implies: less elasticity than a 100% wool yarn. This was not a problem in the hat and scarf, which I knit on US#10-1/2 and US#11 needles, respectively. But I wanted the mittens to be dense and warm, so I went with a smaller needle — US#9, maybe? I didn’t Ravel the mittens because I was so ashamed of them; thus, no record of the needle size.
Anyway, knitting a bulky, non-elastic yarn on US#9s was apparently just too damn much for my dainty paws, and my thumb joint paid the price.
Lesson learned (I hope).
kmkat & her kneedles 
Glad you’re doing better. I don’t like to knit with cotton for the same reason. Makes my hands hurt.
Oy, that will do it. I am on permanent suspension for any needles over sz. 7, or maybe 8. (But rules is rules, and they’s made to be broken.)
I just pulled out a pair of socks that had been returned to the yarn box. I knew I didn’t like them at all, but I didn’t realize that one was 1 1/2″ short. Oops. And we won’t talk about the mittens I currently wear with my red coat.
Big HURRAH!
(I think the largest needle I’ve used in years is a size 6. Back when I was doing a lot of felted knitting, I was using 10’s, which I complained was like knitting with telephone poles.)
The only cotton I’ve ever knit was a dishcloth I made last summer, but it was decidedly NOT dense knitting. I can’t even imagine the strain of trying to knit bulky cotton densely – no wonder your thumb gave you the finger…
Yikes! So sorry. But you can’t tell from the FOs that you were knitting hurt.
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