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Losing My Hands

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Re: Losing My Hands

#31

Post by bauta-steen »

vkazanov wrote: post #8

Had this experience about 6-8 years ago, when I was 30ish. You know, a bunch of programming hobbies + a programming job + active writing as a hobby + not enough cardio activity. It all started with a mild discomformt. Then the discomfort becomes something like mild but constant pain in fingers, hands, arm joints where the nerves are. Not pain-pain but unpleasant sensation. Then my fingertips went numb. And it was get…

When you mention:

> 3. No mechanically clicking keyboards and mice. That's is a nerve hit 1000s right there times a day.

I'm curious how do you go about replacing the keyboard? You can replace the mouse with touchpads, touchscreens, trackballs etc. but what is you effective keyboard replacement (speech to text maybe)? Or do you mean no clicky-switches (for example Cherry blue)?

Re: Losing My Hands

#33

Post by FreeFull »

CipherThrowaway wrote: post #19
saos wrote: post #7

It’s not clear from the article. What was author diagnosed with? They said it was an injury…

Seems like a bizarre omission from the article given the number of tangents and topics covered. My guess is that going down the traditional medicine route lead to him being told there was no organic basis to the pain. As someone who went through a similar experience, I would not be surprised if the author's pain is/was entirely psychosomatic (this doesn't diminish its severity or significance). Probably a direct resu…

I strongly doubt that it'd be purely psychosomatic.. Spending 14 hours a day hammering away at a keyboard will physically damage your wrists.

Re: Losing My Hands

#34

Post by Aeolun »

shimonabi wrote: post #16

My impostor syndrome is cured a little when a machine learning expert mentions acupuncture.

I dunno, my normal doc referred me to some clinic some time that did some kind of accupuncture. I’m not given to the interpretation that he believes in alternative medicine, so there must be something to it.

I thought people sticking needles in me was fucking scary though, so I never went more than the one time.

Re: Losing My Hands

#35

Post by aldarisbm »

There's a few things that caught my attention. I am too in tech, but from what I understand and my circle, everyone... kinda worked less during the pandemic (especially at the start). How was this person pressured to work so much? He was doing machine learning for a company that offers clothes. How can you derive actual societal value from that? Not saying that the work was not interesting or challenging, just a bit weird take.

He also says he has 3 hobbies, and when the pandemic hit... it burst his bubble? I mean how many hobbies are you supposed to have? I'm not going to have 10 different hobbies to have "resiliency" in my hobbies shall a pandemic arrive.

Also, glaring omission on not sharing the reason how it happened? Everyone here works on a keyboard 8+ hours a day... maybe share what some of us could avoid?

Re: Losing My Hands

#36

Post by Aeolun »

theGeatZhopa wrote: post #5
melling wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dealing with hand pain when you’re a computer programmer can be difficult. Here’s the creator of TCL discussing dealing with it in the 1990s https://web.stanford.edu/~ouster/cgi-bin/wrist.php An important excerpt: “My experience suggests that once you start having RSI problems it is very difficult to get rid of them: it will probably be an issue for the rest of your life, and if you don't act quickly things will get…

Compare it to dialysis, where you can't drink when you're thirsty and can't eat a banana and generally have food restrictions, and where you have to go 3x for 4h a week to a hospital. Compare it with cancer and doing the possible against. Compare it to really lost hands caused by sepsis. Compare it to people becoming blind or being blind / suffering hear loss.... No matter if you're a programmer or not, you have to f…

It’s much harder for people without hands to write blog posts too.

Re: Losing My Hands

#37

Post by gcanyon »

> I went through acupuncture physiotherapy, tried anything that might work and threw as many resources at my hands as I tried to work through not being able to use them.

...no mention of going to a doctor. I have a friend who died of cancer while getting his fillings replaced instead of seeing a doctor because "mercury". I don't know that modern medicine could have cured him, but I sure know getting his fillings replaced didn't.

See a doctor, people!

Re: Losing My Hands

#38

Post by melling »

theGeatZhopa wrote: post #5
melling wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dealing with hand pain when you’re a computer programmer can be difficult. Here’s the creator of TCL discussing dealing with it in the 1990s https://web.stanford.edu/~ouster/cgi-bin/wrist.php An important excerpt: “My experience suggests that once you start having RSI problems it is very difficult to get rid of them: it will probably be an issue for the rest of your life, and if you don't act quickly things will get…

Compare it to dialysis, where you can't drink when you're thirsty and can't eat a banana and generally have food restrictions, and where you have to go 3x for 4h a week to a hospital. Compare it with cancer and doing the possible against. Compare it to really lost hands caused by sepsis. Compare it to people becoming blind or being blind / suffering hear loss.... No matter if you're a programmer or not, you have to f…

As someone who has had their hands on fire from typing, I’d personally like to tell you to shut up. You’re clueless.

Imagine a doctor with your attitude.

People have a real problem that no one has a real answer for. They don’t need to be told how much worse it could be.

I’ve got a GitHub repo where I catalog many RSI instances and treatments.

https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes

Re: Losing My Hands

#39

Post by CipherThrowaway »

FreeFull wrote: post #33
CipherThrowaway wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a bizarre omission from the article given the number of tangents and topics covered. My guess is that going down the traditional medicine route lead to him being told there was no organic basis to the pain. As someone who went through a similar experience, I would not be surprised if the author's pain is/was entirely psychosomatic (this doesn't diminish its severity or significance). Probably a direct resu…

I strongly doubt that it'd be purely psychosomatic.. Spending 14 hours a day hammering away at a keyboard will physically damage your wrists.

The question here isn't about damage but about what mechanisms in the "pain pathway" are responsible for OP's specific experience of this pain. One day he has sudden, debilitating pain - in both wrists - in the absence of a traumatic event. He's conspicuously omitted any kind of medical diagnosis, and the whole thing is part of an existential crisis on the tail end of an insane, psychologically unsustainable workload. Not a typical presentation of RSI, that's for sure.

Re: Losing My Hands

#40

Post by eropple »

zsoltkacsandi wrote: post #17
smackeyacky wrote: post #12

Shit posture and bad keyboards are not losing your hands. This is ridiculous.

No, it’s not. I have spinal cord injury due to bad posture (sitting in front of a computer for 20+ years) that led to multiple herniated discs in my cervical spine that are pushing my spinal cord. According to my neurosurgeon it’s quite common nowadays, even in young people in their 20s.

I'm frequently thankful that I had the sense in my twenties to start using a standing desk. I hear of a lot of back problems in my mid-thirties developer cohort.

My hands get tired when I do a lot of typing (these days much more on Slack than in VSCode, sadly), but they don't hurt, and having some ergonomic notes pounded into my dumb head when I was young is probably a lot of that.

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