serious flareup again. mouse hand.
Can’t sleep again because of right mouse hand pain. This SUCKS. I need to deal with this - get a nerve conduction study done, anyrhing. I can’t keep straddling the line like this, huge anxiety.
- numb tingling in whole hand
- pad of hand (
- dull wrist pain - back of wrist, feeling of tension at back of hand,
- pain holding steering wheel
- inside of forearm
- nerve glide
- no positive tapping test?
- tender - even just lightly bumping elbow sends shocks up arm.
I haven’t been using hands after work at all for several weeks, except one day last monday, when I fooled around with spack for a few hours (to try to get trackIR working no less!)
I took it really easy last week, really got very little done on the comp. Last saturday I used the BL workstation which is really not built for me - old mouse, brought my MxMaster, still wrist pain.
I saw it coming. Last weekend I felt my hand enter the danger regime - I powered through it for an hour just to finish the scan, and that was it.
I haven’t been doing a great job doing the exercises since the last flareup a month ago. Maybe that actually helped keep things at bay? It was pretty bad at that time too though.
Genral
Right hand recovered fairly quickly from the level it was at before.
Bakker ergoslider is another brand of rollermouse.
feb 11 note
RSI is back on the force persistent pain the next day and wake up with numb hands only about 2 weeks of relatively strenuous programming I seem to be pressing the keys exceptionally hard and vigorously in some certain circumstances I need to train myself to press the keys more gently I think
old note
challenging because it’s almost completely healed
Lifted boxes and lots and lots of typing
came back suddenly after one single movement three weeks ago
almost completely healed
advice on excersizes to strengthen that won’t aggravate
Back of hand, palm down midline
both forearms pain
general discomfort and stiffness moving fingers for typing and using mouse
pain when pushing down on key
Nerve tapping test three weeks ago lots of tingling
Riding a bike painful
Different every day, tingly and numb some days, dull pain in joint others
Pathophysiological Tissue Changes Associated With Repetitive Movement: A Review of the Evidence - PMC really good paper on
https://matt.might.net/articles/preventing-and-managing-rsi/
https://matt.might.net/articles/peer-review-rebuttals/
https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~cscott/rsi.html
keep warm
https://www.osha.gov/ergonomics
wtf? 4 books? That’s it?
http://rsi.unl.edu/
The majority of the books don’t seem to be based on science - holistic approaches seem to be consuming the market. Just figure out the goddamn mechanism already
1997
only hardcopy
CURRENT Diagnosis & Treatment: Occupational & Environmental Medicine
Has a chapter
https://accessmedicine.mhmedical.com/searchresults.aspx?q=repetitive+strain+injury
“edzhitov again: “The mechanisms of infection-induced inflammation are understood far better than are those of other inflammatory processes. It is unclear how applicable knowledge of infection-induced inflammation is to other types of inflammation.” Also: “Unlike the signals that report infection and injury, the signals that report tissue stress and malfunction, and the molecular sensors that detect these signals, are largely unknown.””
I made another appointment with Ryan Fitzpatrick in response to a flare-up I had on Monday. Went in Thursday morning and unfortunately it had subsided considerably.
Ryan is such a great guy I’m reminded of the John Green quote a competent and caring expert. You really got to see someone like this.
The tests for carpal tunnel were primarily negative - no response to the thumb or Palm. I mentioned that it was very encouraging that it had response back bounced back so quickly it wouldn’t have been like this 6 months ago.
Test for cubital tunnel was partially positive. Arm was held with the elbow folded upwards.
Mention that I had gotten the Kinesis advantage and a roller Mouse he said that the Kinesis was very great he usually only recommends the roller Mouse for certain groups.
He gave me a third stretch (very important, he said) on top of the wrist loading and the foam ball. He said that there may be a myofascial muscle component to this and the exercises will reduce inflammation. Ideally do daily.
Extensor - controlled motion of hand no snapping theraband. He demonstrated only fingers - don’t know if the thumb
do until tired - usually 8 to 12 reps, just don’t overdo it.
I’ve been doing the wrist stretches a little bit wrong I’ve been forcing the weight along the plane vertically up and down but the normal motion of the wrist is a little bit angled and Wrist stretch in the normal joint plane - thumb to nose - dart. He didn’t give a specific weight number but he did say enough to load it.
He mentioned that for some people that have cubital tunnel there will be a brace on the elbow when sleeping but that this is sufficiently uncomfortable that he wouldn’t recommend it right now.
Pinkie to nose
He mentioned that his area of expertise is occupational therapy for the arms and hands and he’s not qualified to talk about causes that might be in the shoulders or higher. He thinks it’s fairly unlikely but he did give me a few names for physiotherapists besides the one that I visited.
mentioned nerve glides to Physio - told me he isn’t a fan of stressing nerves ‘causing symptom’ - my impression was that this wouldn’t be a recommendation of his.
Typing job interview in Jan 2022 excruciating pain
I spent most of 2021 in bed (with the pandemic). Not being able to interface efficiently with the world had a profoundly negative effect on my state of mind. A stronger and better person would have taken this time to do something useful that didn’t involve but I wasted this year.
Like many chronic conditions, not visible, indistinguishable to the casual observer from common and garden laziness. Hard to get people to when you say you can’t help them with X.
Feeds into a cycle - you get less done, so you work harder and longer and faster, more stress, and this makes you hurt more…
Workers comp boards only recently in the US
Nowadays I can get through
Touchscreens are okay. Trackpads and trackpoint nibs are horrible for me - just a couple hours of fine trackpad use will do my hand in. I bought a pen stylus, it was so-so, I didn’t find it practical and the hard edge resting pressure on the wrist -but they’re cheap and good for other stuff, so why not.
Mentioned cubital tunnel as a possiviklity for me
Gpogle voice keyboard on android works great, but not designed for dictation. Google’s Pixel dictation app is not accurate enough for this.
This is going to be a little more personal and listening to someone talk about their medical conditions is the most boring thing imaginable
In the laboratory setting there’s a lot of emphasis on workplace hazards such as compressed gases lasers Etc Matt might it’s easy to forget that 1/3 of all time lost Occupational Health claims are due to repetitive strain injury many of us involve knowledge work whatever that means and it’s inevitable that this will involve writing reports and typing if you type a lot and you get any of the constellation of RSI symptoms such as waking up with numb hands, persistent tingling in the wrist or fingers, Tinel’s sign, or tendonitis symptoms, stop working and - ideally - talk to an occupational physiotherapist specializing in the topic. Don’t try to be macho and type through it or any other nonsense.
I went to a general Sports physiotherapist who also didn’t occupational therapy there were a couple of pseudoscientific things like Chiropractic correction that it was a little unhappiness. I later went to a consultant and it was much more happy
Programming is definitely the most stressful typing pattern for some reason and intense programming session but I really get into the flow almost inevitably causes me pain
Heatmap - up arrow enter reslly common pattern for me. Tried various solutions, none really worked all too well, seen people remap
voice control stresses the vocal cords).
Dec. 16 2021 I asked to see my family doctor. At that time my right wrist: note was :
I’ve had to type a lot, right wrist strain injury
had to rest it for a month, got better
starting a new job wanted to
I was really stressed that I wouldn’t be able to do my job and I was convinced I should send an email to HR before I started explaining the situation. My parents talked me out of this against my, and I’m glad they idd. i managed to limp through probation pretty well. Reasons why you might not wabt to disclose echoed in this academia se post abiut mental helath.
Driving car (turning steeringbwheel) was painful for me.
Lifted weights whule helping move that were way too much for me, although I don’t think this was a significsn factor anymkre because I have nktes from way earlier that this had started to eb abproble. In favt, I remembrr not beung comfortable with keyboard s (fonstantly switching out)
I typed on a Corsair K70 with cherry brown switches for a while. I don’t think the mechabical keys are good for me: seemed to have less pain with the rubber-dome k860.
June 20: pain at the knuckle of index finger on left hand - overdid the extensor exercise maybe
I remembered that I fiddled with dad’s bass and guitar a few times in early 2021. This definitely did not help.
Had a big flare-up two weeks ago. Numb hands when sleeping, pain when driving, pain in middle of fingers and palm, the whole lot. Pulled hard on a thin wrench.
Right now, my index finger on left hand is hurting a lot
using android app Interval Timer for the exercises. Works really well
all the ergonomic devices in the world don’t work if you don’t use them. I’m finally pushing setting up my second workstation at work with the good stuff, and I’m using the k860 at home.
After a few months of practice on each I have surprisingly little trouble switching from Kinesis to a K860 ergo keyboard to a standard workstation. Some people online suggest that once you learn kinesis you can’t switch back easily, but that hasn’t been my experience.
Finding that my current level of muscle memory with the Kinesis advantage is just too slow for code, especially as it’s a little too loud to type quickly on in a shared office. I can write prose with it, but it somehow seems to interfere with the flow of code. Much easier to flow with the Ergo K860.
Haven’t been doing my exercices and had several serious flareups. Hands are extremely weak. Also overall level of fitness has gone downhill - couldn’t ski.
Love the android app Interval Timer. Makes it really easy to get the exercises done.