Kudos to him. Among other things, I consumed gelatin daily for a year or two to feed the damaged tendons and ligaments, which helped significantly but didn't fully resolve the issue. It is resolved (at least for now), without surgery or drugs.
How I stopped the RSI pain that almost destroyed my programming career
21–30 of 245 posts
Re: How I stopped the RSI pain that almost destroyed my programming career
#22My pain started coming back this year. One thing that always helps my mouse hand, is to rest my arm on a raised surface (currently a portfolio), but I've used a textbook before. This caused my hand to drop down to touch the mouse, instead of being pushed up, and changed the body part that gets anchored and pivots when moving the mouse from my wrist to my elbow. That really helped a lot.
I still had issues with my left hand, and for me what has helped this time around is a ComfortBead Wrist Rest along the bottom of the keyboard. I'd used it years ago and wasn't convinced, but this time it's clearly and definitely helped a lot.
In the past, I've sometimes gotten some relief by switching which hand is the mouse hand. Every once in awhile I'll let my left hand control the mouse for a bit.
Re: How I stopped the RSI pain that almost destroyed my programming career
#23I had problem with my right hand. Majorly due to mouse usage. I'm not typing much (even being software developer). I have also tried different physical activities but it's only solving problem temporally. So my lifehack: switch mouse to left/right hand from time to time (or at work left handed, at home right handed). That's it. Yes, it's a bit awkward on beginning, but take that as challenge. And it will bring less h…
I also switch back and forth which hands I use the mouse with. I use the Kinesis DXT mouse which is an ambidextrous vertical mouse. It makes this use-case very easy. switching hands is as easy as pressing a button and moving it.
I also recommend using auto-click software so that you don't have to click the mouse as often. I only click to click-drag, double click, and right click.
I also use the CVim chrome extension to browse with a keyboard.
Re: How I stopped the RSI pain that almost destroyed my programming career
#24Highly recommend trying indoor bouldering. Huge help for my RSI. Go easy for the first 3 weeks.
Re: How I stopped the RSI pain that almost destroyed my programming career
#25Here's my anecdote. I had painful but not debilitating RSI-like symptoms for a couple of years. For me, fixing this came down to a set of fairly simple things: the Kinesis Advantage keyboard mentioned in the article, setting a timer to force myself to take rest breaks, focusing on posture when working. At least in my case, the issue seems entirely mechanical, and I'm sceptical of psychological and emotional explanations like Sarno's.
Re: How I stopped the RSI pain that almost destroyed my programming career
#26I used Sarno's book to cure myself back in 2002 and this approach has been successful ever since. Occasionally I will have some issue (though rarely wrist pain), and I can make it go away quickly by addressing the psychological root cause.
I highly recommend reading his book "The Mindbody Prescription"
Re: How I stopped the RSI pain that almost destroyed my programming career
#27I had problem with my right hand. Majorly due to mouse usage. I'm not typing much (even being software developer). I have also tried different physical activities but it's only solving problem temporally. So my lifehack: switch mouse to left/right hand from time to time (or at work left handed, at home right handed). That's it. Yes, it's a bit awkward on beginning, but take that as challenge. And it will bring less h…
When I first started getting RSI, it was in the mouse arm, up near the shoulder. I did something similar, but wound up with a mouse on each side of my keyboard. That cleared it up reasonably well, and since then my main mouse has always been on the left.
I think that the combination of a keyboard with a numeric keypad (wiiiide) and a right hand mouse is the main trigger, not the concentrated mouse usage with one hand. If I could find one of the narrow model M keyboards, I'd consider moving back to the other side.
The other things I've done have all centered on being aware of where nerves are near the surface, and never putting pressure there. If you're getting numbness in the thumb and first finger, it's likely carpal tunnel. If it's all over, it's more likely at the elbow.
Re: How I stopped the RSI pain that almost destroyed my programming career
#28I got RSI some 26 years ago, due to entering a university CS environment where the workstations and terminals had very light action keyboards. I was used to hammering on stiff, long-travel behemoth keyboads, and of course continued that same pounding on the light ones which shocked the tendons, since I was basically tapping my fingers hard against the keyboard base with no shock absorption from the keys.
The fact that I was doing curls with 45 lb dumbbells in the gym didn't help the wrists, either, not to mention playing guitar.
I ended up with pain, tingling and numbness. The university sports med clinic prescribed a NSAID (naproxen). That did provide some relief.
I overcame the RSI by working exclusively through a DEC VT100 terminal (the actual DEC VT100). Its heavy-duty keyboard with stiff action and long key travel didn't irritate my wrists. Eventually I went over to the light-action/short-travel keyboards that are now ubiquitous.
Haven't had a problem since.
Re: How I stopped the RSI pain that almost destroyed my programming career
#29I had carpal tunnel syndrome to where I lost sensation in three of my fingers, and could not grip properly in that hand.
A chiropractor helped me recover. It took three months, a bit more attention to how I sat and leaned and used my computer equipment. But the pain in my neck and upper back went away, the pain in my arms and shoulders went away, and the sensation and strength came back in my hands.
I didn't rush out to get a special keyboard, though my 1984 Model M keyboard is already special, just not in an ergonomic way.
Re: How I stopped the RSI pain that almost destroyed my programming career
#30My pain started coming back this year. One thing that always helps my mouse hand, is to rest my arm on a raised surface (currently a portfolio), but I've used a textbook before. This caused my hand to drop down to touch the mouse, instead of being pushed up, and changed the body part that gets anchored and pivots when moving the mouse from my wrist to my elbow. That really helped a lot. I still had issues with my lef…
> and changed the body part that gets anchored and pivots when moving the mouse from my wrist to my elbow.
I'm not a doctor, etc.
I set my mouse acceleration pretty high. I have a relatively small mouse, Logitech M325. My forearm, elbow and shoulder don't move at all when I move my mouse.
To move the mouse from one corner to the opposite diagonal, the mouse just moves under my fingers. Most of the time my wrist doesn't move at all.
I've been a programmer, and later jobs that type just as much, since the eighties, and I've never had any kind of RSI. Of course that's me, my body and activity, YMMV etc. But this is worth a shot.
It's also extremely fun to watch a colleague try to drive my mouse and drive off the cliff.
EDIT: Thinking about this a little more. First of all "I've never had any kind of RSI" could just mean that I'm not susceptible to that type of injury.
How I hold my mouse: (works for me)
If I hold my arm up a bit, so that my upper and forearm are something like a V, hand held loosely out and relaxed, then the thumb and index form something like a V, and the fingers are loosely spread out. This puts my thumb about an inch, inch and half below my index.
Now I drop my hand down over my mouse (I don't actually go through this procedure, this just gets you to my position), maintaining that hand configuration roughly. This puts my thumb and pinky just below the bottom edge of the mouse, index on the left button and middle resting lightly on the weel, and ring finger just under the top edge of the mouse on that side. If I pick up the mouse it's held by the thumb and pinky, with a little extra support from the ring finger. To use the right button I move my middle finger over as necessary.
Note that I don't have to move my middle finger forward or back to use the wheel, it's already there. If things get wheely I can lift the middle up a bit. For my hand, this puts the back of the mouse below my highest knuckles.
There are depressions on both sides of the mouse, which look like the natural place to hold it. But if I move my thumb and pinky up into the depression, that pressures my index and middle up. To depress either button or mousewheel it feels like I'm slightly overextending my fingers, and I can feel more effort in my forearm muscles. I also feel effort in my wrist to hold my hand up like that.
When I move the mouse, the outside edge of my pinky and side of my thumb drag on the desk (or couch, at the moment).
If I do lift the mouse up, I just hinge my wrist up a bit, I don't lift my forearm. And my hand hardly moves out of its place, to the point that I sometimes have to clean gummy gunk off my desk, within about the area of a single hand, in one specific place.
So this works for me, I think, because I let all my hand/finger positions and muscles be as natural and lazy as possible. Plus, the mouse fits my hand well, and I've been doing it like this for a long time.
Side note: I hate track pads, and always disable mine, for whatever that's worth.