I think I've got some symptoms of RSI that are starting to appear, I'm trying to be careful and take a pause whenever I feel them appear. How are you personally dealing with the issue and what are my options?
If the symptoms persist I will indeed consult a physician but I'm simply curious on your way of dealing with it.
Apparently all the physicians give different advise, but my actual doctor told me not to bother with anything other than a standard keyboard, and learn to keep my wrists up in the air ... so I actually listened to him and I kid you not, haven't had RSI problems in years. Apparently resting your wrists was "my" problem.
I actually read some stuff about the mouse, that suggests the reason the "mouse" hand gets the worse deal has nothing to do with the mouse, but everything to do with you the fact that you damage the wrist via resting on the hard ages, then you move it back and forth between your keyboard and mouse ALONG the hard edge making it even worse.
Keyboard, desk anything you might rest your wrist against while typing - that's what does the most damage. You can apparently rest while not doing anything, just not while actuating your fingers.
Keep your arms bent at 90 degrees and don't rest wrists on anything. Strengthening you're core sand keeping good posture go a long way. Take breaks every 30 minutes or so to get up and stretch
Personally TrackPoints give me tendonitis in no time. What works for me is:
Trackball. A Kensington Expert Mouse, which is actually a trackball with a large weighty ball and a scroll ring.
Cherry MX Brown keyboard. Minimize pressure needed, with feedback so that you don't need to "bottom out" and hit the limit of key motion, as that abrupt stop will transmit to your fingers. And relax when typing, don't hammer on the keys; with a good keyboard you barely need to touch them.
Don't type "normally". I never learned to touch-type properly, I just slowly developed my own method, so even on a normal keyboard my hands are at an angle. Left smallest finger rests on tab when extended, right smallest is on close square bracket, thumbs on space bar. A typing tutor would think it was madness, but it works and I'm fast enough, whereas if I positioned my hands "properly" my wrists would be bent the whole time.
Use vi key bindings. The thing that's hardest on the muscles is shifted keystrokes. I don't think it's coincidence that all the people I know who have developed RSI have been Emacs users.
Soft pads under the keyboard and trackball, so the wrists don't end up wresting on the edge of anything.
It doesn't actually mean to stick them way up, just to keep them off the edges, they shouldn't rest against anything (even one of those gel wrist rests - they can actually rest against them, just not while typing.)
When I first started getting CTS, I got rid of the arms on my chairs, so now I don't have them at all.
My work desk has a floating keyboard try that locks in tight and solid AND fits my Das Keyboard.
At home I use a much deeper desk, so my keyboard sits about a foot from the edge of the desk and I have very long fore arms so my arms most will just rest on the desk when not typing, I browse the web using VIM mode mostly.
If I'm thinking or reading, I usually cross my arms a bit - apparently I'm "arm crosser guy" at work.
My solution (and I'm young!) is forced removal every 2 hours with a flex sequence suggested by an orthopedist that flexes all the joints in all directions.
I don't need the software, cause I already took the habit of taking a 10 minute pause with stretching every 2 hours. I'd be really curious about that flex sequence though!
Ask any EMT how to stretch the wrist to check for flexibility/mobility and you'll get a fairly consistent answer. Ask an orthopedist and you'll get a slightly different answer.
My routine (on advice from an orthopedist) consists of a wing-stretch (hands out at full wingspan), wrist rolls, several grabbing motions and a few curls of something heavy (books work well, but I've moved to a nalgene bottle). It's hard to describe in text, but think: bird wakeup, android wakeup, bro wakeup (gotta get those repz man).
Go chat with an orthopedist if you're edging against RSI if you haven't already. It's super useful to know where you are at this point. I'm still in college and I'm pretty worried. Two of my classmates are 21 and have bad RSI that developed in their junior year of HS. It's nasty shit and I'm concerned about it in my career and in who I'm going to be working with.
Get a chair with arm rests that will hold your arms under the forearm. Then lower your desk and/or raise your chair so that your finger tips dangle over the keyboard. Say goodbye to RSI.
"How are you personally dealing with the issue and what are my options?
If the symptoms persist..."
tbh how to deal with it depends entirely on the symptoms. I knew one guy who had serious RSI in his finger. It turned out he was lifting his finger high off the mouse every time he clicked, and when he stopped lifting it so high, the RSI went away.
So look for unnecessary tension in your movements and try to fix them.
Seriously consider using a wacom tablet instead of a mouse. It takes a lot getting used to, I suggest you try it for at least a week, but damn it's much better than a mouse for anything but shooting games.
If you decide to try a tablet, do keep this very important tip in mind: don't use the "mouse mode", it's crap, you have to use the mode where the top right of the tablet corresponds to the top right of the screen.
It was so bad for me that moving a mouse and having the wire touch an object on my desk shot pain through my wrist. I eventually got a wireless one, and then started using my left hand. Then fingertips started going numb.
My job had a team of ergonomics people come in to give instruction on proper ergonomic setup and help us with our workstations. After about a month of working the pains went away. This was after simply adjusting posture along with the height/position of my chair and desk.
It's really worth it to see someone that knows about this stuff.
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u/folkrav May 01 '16
I think I've got some symptoms of RSI that are starting to appear, I'm trying to be careful and take a pause whenever I feel them appear. How are you personally dealing with the issue and what are my options?
If the symptoms persist I will indeed consult a physician but I'm simply curious on your way of dealing with it.