I mainly have degenerative osteoarthritis in my spine, but do sympathize as I also have radiculitis (pain radiating from neck to hand) and tendonitis (very minimal arthritis in wrists & knuckles).
I've found that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure & doing my prescribed fitness activities and meal plan definitely help quite a bit. In addition to that, I use a splint when not quilting to give my joints a rest. The ergo cutters are wonderful, but the bigger cause is the height of cutting surface. When the cutting surface is too low, it forces the wrist/hand to push harder on the surface, and at an awkward angle, in order to execute the cut. OHSA has a fantastic eManual with recommendations for sewers at:
https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/sewing/index.html
Since I started following their recommendations (especially tilting my sewing machine toward me & stacking books under a card table to provide me a good height for a cutting surface), I have found my pain and swelling greatly reduced. For arthritis in the wrist, the best way to prevent problems is to keep the pinky side of your hand resting against a surface (or at least parallel to surface). I change out my blades every 6 hours & switch hand needles every 2-3 hours. I use Teflon coated needles & a leather needle puller for my hand work and plan my time so that I have the option to work on 2 different quilts at different stages so that if I need a break from hand work (needle turn, cutting, etc), I can switch and work on a different quilt doing machine piecing or quilting. It works out really nicely for me.
Also wanted to add that if you use a computer, that could be contributing to your wrist pain. I got a GoldTouch split keyboard and an Evoluent vertical mouse. The mouse took about 8 hours to get used to, but now I would never go back. When I don't stress my joints so much with typing, I have less inflammation to impact me when I start sewing.
Hope that helps! I'm with you. I can't imagine I'll ever give up quilting.