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Jul. 12th, 2006 12:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceOh, hey - hurty hands! Welcome home, it's been a while...
I've had RSI since, oh, 1985 or thereabouts, when I got my first computer. At the time I was writing short stories for a living, and writing my first novel evenings and weekends. Mucho mucho typing, and it took me about three months to foul my hands up. My doctor at the time nodded wisely, said I had tenosynovitis (see, it's that long ago, we didn't even call it RSI) and told me he'd had it himself in his ankles, from cycling too hard, and there wasn't any cure but to walk around flatfooted for a while. So I tried that, but it didn't help...
I lived with it, then, entirely untreated till about five years ago, when I started getting serious neural symptoms on top of the pain. Since then I've had heavyweight physio, mostly on the neck and spine, plus acupuncture, and I've not really had significant pain for a while now. Plenty of other symptoms abide - it would take a lifetime to sort me out properly, and my physio-of-choice is conspicuously not volunteering - but the pain has pretty much been away.
It's back. The word 'vengeance' occurs. The irony, of course, is that I can still type. When it's at its worst I can't carry books or turn a door handle - but I can always type. Which is good. Twenty pages to go, more or less. I have a gig in Middlesbrough tomorrow evening, which is inconvenient, and I really had hoped to be finished by now; end of the week, though. Surely, end of the week...
I've had RSI since, oh, 1985 or thereabouts, when I got my first computer. At the time I was writing short stories for a living, and writing my first novel evenings and weekends. Mucho mucho typing, and it took me about three months to foul my hands up. My doctor at the time nodded wisely, said I had tenosynovitis (see, it's that long ago, we didn't even call it RSI) and told me he'd had it himself in his ankles, from cycling too hard, and there wasn't any cure but to walk around flatfooted for a while. So I tried that, but it didn't help...
I lived with it, then, entirely untreated till about five years ago, when I started getting serious neural symptoms on top of the pain. Since then I've had heavyweight physio, mostly on the neck and spine, plus acupuncture, and I've not really had significant pain for a while now. Plenty of other symptoms abide - it would take a lifetime to sort me out properly, and my physio-of-choice is conspicuously not volunteering - but the pain has pretty much been away.
It's back. The word 'vengeance' occurs. The irony, of course, is that I can still type. When it's at its worst I can't carry books or turn a door handle - but I can always type. Which is good. Twenty pages to go, more or less. I have a gig in Middlesbrough tomorrow evening, which is inconvenient, and I really had hoped to be finished by now; end of the week, though. Surely, end of the week...
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-12 09:29 am (UTC)In my case, there are two actual causes that I've been able to do something about: (a) a dodgy chair, or (b) a dodgy desk. In both cases, the cause is diagnosed by removing it; if the RSI goes away, I've found the trigger.
The dodgy chair syndrome is cured by looking at one's chair, realizing the bloody thing's falling apart, and buying a new one. I'm currently on a horribly expensive Herman Miller Aeron, which I'd rate as a B+, but with the advantage that it's got a design life of >10 years. I believe the serious chair shops will let you borrow one to try at home for a month -- that'd be enough time to figure out if it's useful -- and you can pick up good second-hand one's on eBay for about half price (hint).
Unfortunately I think my current mild-to-medium RSI is desk-induced, which is going to be harder. I really need to move somewhere bigger and do a massive de-clutter at the same time; there's no room to cram an extra desk into my office for a while. Moreover, the current desk is one I don't want to ditch, even if I have to get something else for typing on -- it's a cute folding Scandinavian-style bureau from the 1960s or 1970s, with lots of niches for paperwork and stuff. It may be at the wrong height for a laptop, but it's perfect for handwriting.
(