I learned to crochet at sixteen from my grandmother and never put it down for long. Six years ago my doctor saw the click in my right thumb and told me I'd be doing myself a favor to stop. I almost did. Then I found this brace through an ad I nearly scrolled past. A few months later I'm on the couch every evening with a hook in my hand. The click at the base of my thumb is gone. The ache shows up occasionally but nothing like it used to.

I have played in cover bands on weekends for about thirty years and my fretting thumb finally hit a wall last spring. Tried a thumb spica from the pharmacy first but turned my whole hand into a block, could not even barre a chord. Then I bought a $90 rigid CMC brace I found on a guitar forum. The plastic edge cut into the base of my palm so badly I had a red mark for a week. This one is the first I have worn that actually lets me play. Not rigid, not bulky, and the joint stays where it needs to.

My hand therapist suggested this after I described the way my thumb would start feeling like there was a needle pressing into the joint about an hour into my afternoon. She said most of the clinical braces she sees are not actually built for the repetitive micro impacts of keyboard work because they are built for resting an injured joint, not using one. Three weeks of wearing it through my workday and that needle feeling does not show up anymore, even on heavy editing days.

Three months of daily wear and nothing has gone slack, the pad is still firm and the elastic still snaps back. The two Amazon ones I tried before this both wore out inside a month.

Got the wrong size to start, sat on my thumb so tight I could not wear it more than an hour. Emailed them on the Monday morning expecting the usual runaround. Same afternoon they sent me a prepaid return label and confirmed they would post the Large out the next day. Replacement landed by Wednesday and fits the way it is supposed to. First online exchange I have done that did not feel like a chore.

Ordered Tuesday evening expecting the usual seven to ten working day wait you get with most online shops. Tracking email landed the same night, dispatch confirmation by Wednesday morning, on my doorstep by Friday lunchtime. The whole thing felt like a real product from a real company before I had even played a note, glad I purchased from here.

Been wearing it for the past two months almost every day and still nothing has gone slack. The Amazon one I bought wore out in about two weeks of using.