71–80 of 398 posts
I have been lucky to not be impacted by hand or wrist pain. I did experience chronic back pain for years due to a pinched sciatic nerve, it can be debilitating and depressing. Chronic pain is a large precursor to suicide, if you have it, you need to get it fixed. My interest in this is from a FutureOfProgramming perspective, how can we interact with computers in different, higher order ways. What does the Mother of A…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think the author is trying to exploit doctors to get clicks. I think they're expressing genuine anger and frustration with the healthcare systems they've encountered and the dismissal they've experienced from doctors in those systems.
A doctor telling you they don’t know what the root cause of your problem is is not dismissal, unless all of the author’s doctors are acting in bad faith. I was sad to hear that because of my bone structure in my wrists I will have to be very careful when typing for the rest of my life in order to avoid the pain coming back. I didn’t swear at my doctor when he told me that.
> I went away to the UK. I brought my medical records from America, but my British neurologist did not read my records or perform examinations. [...] My GP read the note and informed me: He would not prescribe me painkillers. He would not send me for a second opinion from a neurologist, or treatment from any other specialist.
"Bad faith" is a vague term. Is not reading medical records evidence of bad faith? I don't know. But I'd sure feel dismissed if a doctor who hadn't read my records concluded without examination that the root cause of my problem was psychological and my GP refused to allow me to seek a second opinion.
I think you may be confusing the American diagnoses (which were of the "we don't know the underlying cause" variety - fibromyalgia, idiopathic neuropathy) with the UK diagnoses (which I'd paraphrase as "you don't have a non-psychological problem and we won't allow a second opinion").
This story resonates. A few years back I was dealing with mild pain while coding. I stupidly ignored it for months as it got significantly worse, to the point where it became impossible to type for extended periods. I tried lots of things. My doctor did a nerve conduction study, which apparently ruled out carpal tunnel syndrome, but he wasn't much help beyond that. He gave me some straps that I slept in and wore arou…
I have small fiber neuropathy in my arms and legs, which causes constant pain and a feeling of weakness. I've had this for a few years now, and I'm very aware that it's only got worse over that period, and that I may later get damage to the larger nerves used for motor control.
Like you say, the pain and fear that coding (which is my livelihood and passion) may become impossible is quite terrifying, and a constant, nagging presence in the back of my mind.
I haven't tried any dictation software since the days of Dragan Dictate, possibly 1-2 decades ago, but I'd like to hope it's come in since then. It sounds like you really persisted with it, and I have a few questions about your experience if you don't mind:
1. Was the pace much slower, and did you get frustrated with it? A mouse and keyboard allows me to operate closer to the "speed of thought" than I would guess dictation software would
2. What do you say to move the cursor around, or switch between open files?
3. I'd guess there's a big difference between dictating a document and coding or working on the command line, as you're not always inputting "real" words. How well did dictation work in that regard?
4. Are any IDEs particular dictation-friendly?
Has anyone successfully come back from something like this? Life is getting pretty bleak.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had literally the exact same experience as your first two paragraphs. Where my experience diverged is when I met a doctor of some kind who explained that it's the same kind of pain that truckers often get for resting their arms on the armrests. Turns out it was because I was resting my arms on the keyboard or the desk between me and the keyboard. Stopped doing that, the pain went away completely within a few days,…
Interesting. Could you be more specific about where your pain was located? Was it in you arms or wrists?
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I also suffered from hand pain from typing and took up climbing both inside and a bit of outside for a good 8 years solid. I found bouldering to be way more intense than just top rope (eventually getting into lead) climbing. Most of my hand/arm injuries were from bouldering. I concur with the previous response though... climbing, done well and not over doing it... was the 100% solution to my pain problem. Sitting and…
I don’t suppose this could be translated into specific exercises in the gym?
Good for fixing or hang above a door way.
You don't need to actively climb on these, hanging from the holds will do the trick and reduce the possibility of dynamic loads.
This story resonates. A few years back I was dealing with mild pain while coding. I stupidly ignored it for months as it got significantly worse, to the point where it became impossible to type for extended periods. I tried lots of things. My doctor did a nerve conduction study, which apparently ruled out carpal tunnel syndrome, but he wasn't much help beyond that. He gave me some straps that I slept in and wore arou…
I had literally the exact same experience as your first two paragraphs. Where my experience diverged is when I met a doctor of some kind who explained that it's the same kind of pain that truckers often get for resting their arms on the armrests. Turns out it was because I was resting my arms on the keyboard or the desk between me and the keyboard. Stopped doing that, the pain went away completely within a few days,…
This story resonates. A few years back I was dealing with mild pain while coding. I stupidly ignored it for months as it got significantly worse, to the point where it became impossible to type for extended periods. I tried lots of things. My doctor did a nerve conduction study, which apparently ruled out carpal tunnel syndrome, but he wasn't much help beyond that. He gave me some straps that I slept in and wore arou…
That story of how the doctors just dismissed her pain as delusion is terrifying. Doctors are supposed to be people of science, but one of the very fundamentals of science is to acknowledge that you don't know everything, that your current knowledge is just a theory that can be improved upon. I find there's a tendency among doctors to think they know every possible disease, and if someone comes along with one that doe…
You really don’t know how many hypochondriacs we get. And general anxiety disorder with a focus on healthcare. And totally reasonable people who start attaching every last twinge and twitch to their (real) core symptom, and want an answer that encompasses all of them. And these people seek care. A lot. Literally orders of magnitude more than ordinary people do. You have your one story of (x). I can tell you about a s…
Calling worried patients with scary symptoms "nuts" and their issues "crap" really sums up the sort of thing I am talking about and is what makes patients afraid their provider isn't going to do their best to help them. Empathy is required for good healthcare. I recently got another confirmed and terribly depressing diagnosis of an incurable issue, but the provider I was working with was so kind, caring, and informative it reduced the mental impact as much as is possible. A dismissive provider, who was ultimately wrong, a few weeks before had me in an even worse head space than normal until I got to someone good. When I reached out to the wrong one to notify them they didn't seem care at all and dug in harder despite the proof/labs etc.
"A few bad apples" isn't because of the few bad apples. It's because the farmer decides all the apples are rotten, and throws them all out with the few rotten ones, while telling others constantly about those rotten ones as if they are the norm.