How to cure & avoid the writing knob/lump on middle finger?

[Dominink]

I write fairly much with a fountain pen (mostly German shorthand and learning Palmer method handwriting drills), maybe 1 hour a day, sometimes less, sometimes more.

Apparently, this is enough for my hand to develop a (bone?) kob/lump on the first joint of the middle finger, where the pen lies.

 

Are there any ways to cure it without surgery? And what can be done to avoid or at least not deteriorate it?

I tried wearing a thin knitted glove, but was sweating in the glove and found it uncomfortable to wear a glove when writing for more than a few minutes.

 

Please share your advice, recommendations and experiences.

Thank you!

 

PS: I don't know if this is the right sub-forum, please move accordingly, if I failed. Thank you!

[Al-fresco]

I think you need to seek qualified medical opinion… But (oh come on, there’s always a “but”) examine your pen grip.  I know that’s hard, I couldn’t even visualise my grip without stopping to pick up a pen.  We tend to adopt our grip at a very early age and stick with it but I’ve noticed many people hold their pens very differently from the way I do.  (And their writing is neater too.) I assume you’ve tried changing your pen - have you tried changing your grip?  Yes, it’ll be hard and it will slow you down at first.  

 

I probably don’t write an hour a day now - but when I was a student I wrote a lot more (using rubbish pens)  with no ill effects, apart from temporary “writer’s cramp.”
 

But, honestly, I’d see a doctor.  

[Dominink]

  On 10/14/2024 at 7:07 AM, Al-fresco said:

I think you need to seek qualified medical opinion… But (oh come on, there’s always a “but”) examine your pen grip.  I know that’s hard, I couldn’t even visualise my grip without stopping to pick up a pen.  We tend to adopt our grip at a very early age and stick with it but I’ve noticed many people hold their pens very differently from the way I do.  (And their writing is neater too.) I assume you’ve tried changing your pen - have you tried changing your grip?  Yes, it’ll be hard and it will slow you down at first.  

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Thank you for your reply!

It is not that bad that it needs medical attention, but I will sure bring it up the next time I have a doctor's appointment (which could be soon, cold season is coming here in Germany anyway).

 

As for the grip: I use the traditional tripod grip, where the pen is "pinch"-held by thumb and first finger, resting on the middle finger. I learned that in school with the classic Lamy tripod fountain pen section and did some research, it seems to be the most recommended grip, especially for longer writing sessions.

 

Anyway in the meantime I did some research and found out it is quite common for writers, called "writer's callus" or "writer's bump". As long as it is not hurtful, which it isn't in my case, just odd-looking - it is not a "serious" condition it seems.

 

Still, I will keep an eye on it and ask the doctor next time to see what she recommends in avoiding it.

I guess I will try a cut-of middle finger part from a very thin fabric glove in the meantime. Maybe writing with less pressure might help and I will experiment with pens that require less pressure (my new Opus 88 demonstrator is perfect, it weighs enough, so it is put down by sheer gravity, which reduces the required pressure, also the ink flows freely, which also reduces the required pressure).

[Al-fresco]

Good to hear it.  But you do realise that now I can't pick up my pen without thinking about the way I'm holding it!

[Vintage_BE]

  On 10/13/2024 at 7:41 PM, Dominink said:

Apparently, this is enough for my hand to develop a (bone?) kob/lump on the first joint of the middle finger, where the pen lies.

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I don’t meen to be cheeky, but your predicament reminds me of something that Yves Montand (the Cary Grant of France) is supposed to have said. 
Next time you meet someone who works in the construction industry, or in gardening, look at her/his hands. 
And I agree with the recommendation to loosen your grip. It’s easier said than done, it took me several years, but it does pay off. Including for the fluency of your writing. 
Best of luck and enjoy your practice.

[Dominink]

  On 10/17/2024 at 12:22 PM, Vintage_BE said:

I don’t meen to be cheeky, but your predicament reminds me of something that Yves Montand (the Cary Grant of France) is supposed to have said. 
Next time you meet someone who works in the construction industry, or in gardening, look at her/his hands. 
And I agree with the recommendation to loosen your grip. It’s easier said than done, it took me several years, but it does pay off. Including for the fluency of your writing. 
Best of luck and enjoy your practice.

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Wow, this looks beautiful!

Thanks, this beautiful handwriting keeps me motivated to work on my handwriting as well as pen and finger grip/position.

 

I have started with the Palmer method of handwriting drills. It is supposed to help with all these problems: less cramping (by using the arm/shoulder instead of the finger muscles) and it allows for fast writing with a less hard grip (which should be good for the finger problem).

This weekend I will do some glove-shopping and try to use a cut-off glove finger on my middle finger joint and see if that also helps.

 

[Mercian]

  On 10/13/2024 at 7:41 PM, Dominink said:

Are there any ways to cure it without surgery? And what can be done to avoid or at least not deteriorate it?

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Back when I used ballpoints continually, I had one of those building up too.
I have found, since switching to fountain pens, that it has now largely disappeared.

 

I agree with Al-fresco that your grip may be a factor - not just the geometry of it, but how tightly you are gripping your pen.

When I first joined here I was looking for advice on how to improve my handwriting, and I saw several recommendations that one should make sure that one only grips one's pen very gently - the phrase 'as though it were a featherless baby bird' was mentioned a few times.

 

I also remember reading a thread in which someone said that they had had a teacher who used to wander around the class, occasionally plucking the pens out of kids' hands without any warning. And that if anyone were holding their pen so tightly that the teacher found taking the pen difficult, the kid would be told that their grip was too tight.

 

I found that it took me a good while to learn to relax my grip, but that, as I said at first, my 'writer's callous' has now diminished.

 

Caveat lector: I don't practice shorthand, so don't know if a 'relaxed grip' is desirable - or even possible - for that discipline.
I wish you the best of luck with it 😊

[PPPR]

My guess is you grip the pen too tightly. At least, that's how I got mine when learning the Palmer method many decades ago. I never could loosen my grip, so it's still there. 

[Vintage_BE]

  On 10/17/2024 at 1:11 PM, Dominink said:

This weekend I will do some glove-shopping and try to use a cut-off glove finger on my middle finger joint and see if that also helps.

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By all means, experiment and find out what works for you.  I’ve tried gloves and other things, and concluded that I write best when my hand, wrist and fingers are free. 

[kazoolaw]

It must have been frightening to see the bump on your finger, but can assure you it’s not malignant, merely unsightly.  And that it is the result of a tight grip on whatever one writes with.  Mine began with the thick, black, round pencils we used as children to begin writing.  After stumbling across fountain pens in midlife and learning a looser grip the callus has largely gone away, leaving a small reminder of toiling away endlessly in a vain effort to earn a Palmer Handwriting certificate.

[Janeite]

So very helpful!  I've had that bump on and off over the years (depending on how much handwriting I've done), and now I realize that I need to loosen my grip.  Thank you to the posters in this thread!

[Dominink]

Thank you for your comments and contributions!

Very reassuring to know that this is just a minor issue and seems to be quite common (like many guitar player's hardened finger tip skin) and not a medical problem that needs surgery.

 

I have now ordered these over kleinanzeigen (German private marketplace for used items, like Crag's List in USA)

They are supposed to be used when you cut your finger and need the band aid to be kept in place. They are made from a cotton-rayon mix fabric.

 

I will intend to roll them over the upper joint of my middle finger, where the lump/callus is. Thus, I will cut them down, I don't need my whole finger covered, just the joint.

 

I hope they are not too thick as to feel awkward, hinder my handwriting or to make my finger sweat from warmth (if there even are sweat glands).

Will report when they arrive.

 

Also, I have begun to learn the Palmer method of muscular movement handwriting, which allows for a more relaxed grip and a different hand position.

 

[Dominink]

Just to let you know it works quite nice with those finger tubes I bought (pictured above), they are made from some mesh-gauze material and usually for healing little finger wounds.

I cut them up so they only cover the upper phalange where my callus/knot is and it has not worsened so far (however I did not have a lot of time to write recently, unfortunately, so I cannot really say whether they work well when writing more).

  

  On 10/17/2024 at 4:43 PM, Vintage_BE said:

By all means, experiment and find out what works for you.  I’ve tried gloves and other things, and concluded that I write best when my hand, wrist and fingers are free. 

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@Vintage_BE I have just now seen your beautiful handwriting!

It looks like Palmer or Spencerian, may I ask where did you learn it? Your B, P, R, and F among others look much nicer than Palmer! (I never liked the Palmer F, it did not look like F to me).

Can you share any resources and tips and tricks from starting from scratch? How long did it take you to write such beautifully?

[Vintage_BE]

@Dominink Austin Norman Palmer was the most famous instructor of “business” penmanship, a style that was derived from Spencerian in the late 19th century. At a time when typewriters and copiers were not yet available, companies needed ”penmen” for purposes of correspondence, bookkeeping, invoicing, etc. Aesthetics and uniformity of characters were a must for employers, but so was speed of execution (productivity). That is why “business” penmanship was a popular form of (higher) education: it simplified Spencerian so as to allow “rapid” writing. And I think the “need for speed” also explains the rise of the “arm movement” method (which I personally think is not an absolute must when learning BP or Spencerian, except perhaps for offhand flourishing or when writing at an x-height of more than 3mm, but YMMV).

 

There are many manuals of both business penmanship ( do a google search on A.N. Palmer, Mary Champion etc.) and Spencerian (the best collection of links that I know is made available by https://pennavolans.com/19th-20th-penmanship-in-the-usa) available online. The best-known contemporary manuals are the ones published by Michael Sull.

 

For a European like me, the first hurdle in learning BP/Spencerian was to get used to “slanted” writing (at a 52 degree angle). Also, I fell into the trap of thinking that these styles were not much different from the style that I was taught at grade school in the 1960’s. Wrong. The only way to get to a decent level is to start from scratch, i.e. learn the basic strokes, then the individual characters, then the ligatures, as if you are learning to write for the first time. It does take many hours but if you really enjoy creating elegant lines then (as our French friends like to say) “quand on aime, on ne compte pas”.

 

Finally, I wanted to believe for a long time that it’s possible to write Spencerian with a fountain pen. Nope, even extra fine points are way too broad for the slanted lines that you need to put on paper. Again, YMMV.

[Dominink]

@Vintage_BE Thank you very much for your detailled and insightful answer!

I just bookmarked the link you provided, there are plenty of resources listed which I am sure will turn out useful.

 

Spencerian to me looks a bit too fancy (too many ornaments for my aim: writing faster than with block letters, yet still cursive), so Palmer is the method I have chosen. As you said, business penmanship also had writing speed as one aim, for me it is the best compromise between allowing for speedy handwriting and still looking nice and somewhat fancy (although not as ornamental as Spencerian and other more elaborate styles).

 

I am still a Palmer beginner, of course and somehow find that some German words look odd with Palmer, which was tailored to the English language, of course (even though the English and German alphabet share the same letters, apart from Umlaute and ß, some more frequently used letter combinations in German look "odd", I cannot really explain it, it ist just a feeling). 

 

I do the oval & push-pull drills, as you say, it is important for me to learn the muscle movement from scratch (using arm/shoulder muscles instead of solely relying on finger/wrist). This leads to odd feeling when writing in everyday, since as a Palmer beginner and can't use Palmer cursive yet, so it is a strange hybrid between my former (block letter) handwriting ("chicken scratch" rather) and trying to insert some Palmer letter and cursive letter connections/ligatures here and there.

 

I do use fountain pens for the Palmer drills (no force in the universe will ever make me revert to roller ball, ballpoint or pencils).  I find the Pilot resin Falcon <Soft Extra Fine> and Pilot 743 <Fine> work nice for Palmer, which does not need line variation. Also, those pens are light enough for my rather small-ish hand to not tire when doing longer drill/practice sessions.

 

It is just the first step of a many year-long journey, I am sure, but such beautiful writings like yours serve as a motivation for me and I think many others.

If you happen to have an alphabet from where you got your "B", "P", "R" and "S" letterforms, please feel free to share!

[Centurion]

Recently, my writer’s callous has become more sensitive to pressure on it such that I’ve been experimenting with different grips. But then I thought perhaps the discomfort or mild pain would go away if I got reduced the size of the callous. I got a pumice stone which is people use for their feet. Anyone try using a pumice stone to get rid of their writer’s bump callous?

[cellmatrix]

Two suggestions 

 

1 - cut out small circles of mediplast salicylic plaster pads (you can purchase them on Amazon) the size of the callous  and place them on callous once a day and cover with a small piece of duct tape about 1 by 1 cm in size. The next day after bathing or washing your hands remove the duct tape salicylic acid plaster and scrape the white dead skin off gently with a dull butter knife. Then place a fresh pad/ tape for another 24 hours. Repeat until callous is gone or if area starts to sting slightly (which is a sign you’ve gone far enough). I’m a dermatologist and have learned over many years that this is the fastest way to remove calluses and small warts on the skin. 
 

2) grip your pen lightly. Just barely hold it in place, let the weight of the pen itself be all the pressure applied to the paper and write with your shoulder not your fingers. Look at the discussion of holding the pen in this book modern business penmanship by EC Mills. It will teach you how to do this. If you take the time to learn, this book will transform your penmanship and your will not develop callous on you middle finger as much because the pressure will be reduced 

 

https://archive.org/details/MillsModernBusinessPenmanship/page/n2/mode/1up

 

good luck 👍 

[Mercian]

  On 4/11/2025 at 5:13 AM, Centurion said:

I got a pumice stone which is people use for their feet. Anyone try using a pumice stone to get rid of their writer’s bump callous?

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I advise against attempting this!

 

I think that I tried it once myself, and 'succeeded' only in removing the top layer of my skin on said bump, resulting in a painful and annoying minor injury. Which of course got 'poked' every time that I tried to write anything

The 'writer's bump' callous isn't like a dead-skin callous on one's heel - there's live flesh in there.
If you switch to a light grip (which is far easier if you switch to only using a fountain pen, except when there is absolutely no option to not use a BP), your writer's callous will slowly disappear. Mine did.
I wish you good luck with it