Carpal Tunnel, RSI (Repetitive Stress Injury)
Have you experienced any computer work-related injuries? (Christy1, 3/3/99 2:41:27 PM)
If you have found your back, neck, wrist, fingers aching tell us what have you done to improve the problem? I have a wrist-wrap, which is only occasionally necessary. I have a Kensington Sports padded mouse pad. Then, too, I am ambidextrous. Not in Photoshop, however! Tell us your remedies. Outside of quitting, of course :-)
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Sue Thomas (Sue Thomas, 3/3/99 4:37:53 PM)Oh how timely!
I have just started having physio each week for the beginnings of what must be RSI. I have some kind of electronic vibration which overstimulates the nerves so that they forget about the pain - well, that's the theory anyway.
It does relieve the pain for a while, but not for more than a couple of days.
I recently saw a new kind of mouse with a wheel on the top - tried it, and it makes your hand work in a totally different way. Seems worth trying for a while.
I will find out the name and report back.
But I'd love to hear of remedies!
sue
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Flavia Dzodan (yanna, 3/3/99 7:07:00 PM)you ppl wont believe this, but i have callus in my wrists due to the amount of time i spend either typing and using the mouse. i have tried everything (from those smooth mouse pads to hot baths for my hands) and even though i seem to fix the problem, its only temporary, since the callus will come back after a while.
it even causes me social distress, since whenever my frieds realize (no matter how hard i try to hide my wrists they eventually see this..haahaha), they make all kinds of funny comments (from the obvious ones about my work to some subtle inquieries about the usage of handcuffs ;-) )
does anyone actually have a remedy for this?? if so, PLEASE, I beg you...share it with us.
about pain in the back and neck, i find that a hot bath at night, before going to bed (half an hour in a hot tub is enough for me), helps me relax the muscles in a pretty fine way (at least enough to sleep soundly).
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Helen Flint (otlaw, 3/4/99 4:39:40 AM)sounds awful And I thought I was alone in this! Medical relatives say CT is hormonal but TRIGGERED by keyboards ...
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Morten Wang (NettRom, 3/4/99 6:16:16 AM)Ok... before I start I'll make sure I write a disclaimer. This post will be quite long. It'll also be written by a regular person, I'm not a doctor or anything. Only thing is that I've pushed myself over the limit and seen the consequenses. I'll just write my thought about the issues.
First of all, the list of problems. Even though I'm only 24 (25 in a month and 2 days) I've been able to try out quite a few things. I've got tendinitis(sp?) in both hands. I've also had problems with pain in the lower back a couple of times. At irregular intervals I have pain in the neck and/or shoulders with headaches as a result. I'm also one of those that cannot use both eyes to view things, so I use only my right eye. If I strain my eyes a bit it'll soon make my neck/shoulders tighten, and I end up with pains there as well as headaches.
How do I manage to live with all this? One thing I believe is important is to make sure you have a comfortable working environment. The environment should be good, both physically and mentally. I'll get back to the physical part and instead say a few words about the mental part.
I believe that if you're not mentally comfortable with your working environment it'll develop into tightening of muscles and thereby pain. You'll probably be slightly upset easily, and tend to strain your body. This even though you probably don't notice it beside the fact that you're not comfortable with the situation. Once the pain strikes you'll notice it for sure, though.
The goal would therefore be to make sure the pain doesn't strike. Make sure you feel things are ok. As an example I'm one of those that am not comfortable if someone wants to tell me how my desktop should look. And I'm also not going to use a specific kind of program if I have one already that does the work just fine. I am the one to be in control. When I am in control I'm also mentally comfortable with the situation.
Enough about that, most problems probably lie in the physical department anyway. Furniture, hardware and what temperature/humidity you have in the room you work is important. It'll directly affect you physically, and if things are not right it'll be painful.
The room itself is often not too difficult to make sure is ok. I prefer having it not too hot in the room, and I like having a good circulation of air. An open window may be good if the season allows it. Some people may have trouble during the dry winter season, and getting a humidifier(sp?) could be smart. I haven't worked a lot with this though, at home things are very ok as they are. At work we have an A/C that seems to work well.
Next thing is furniture. I had some serious problems with pain in my lower back a while ago, and they went away when I got myself a new chair. Good support for the thighs and the back, as well as elbow pads helped. The chair I have now costs approx 1000 USD, but it's the best chair I've seen. Biggest advantage of such a chair is the good possibilities of adjustment, something I found to be useful.
I have also got a table for my monitor, keyboard and mouse. It's another 200 USD, but I get my monitor in a good position relative to where I sit, and I get my keyboard and mouse in the right place. Having the keyboard too high or too low has been a problem for me in the past, and the table I have now is of course height-adjustable. Another good thing with my table is that it's wide enough to have my keyboard and mouse on it. That way I get the mouse and the keyboard at the same height, which means I only need to move my hand horisontally when I jump between them.
The biggest disadvantage with furniture is the cost. It's easy to take an old table and a chair you have laying around and use it, instead of investing in expensive things like I've done. From my point of view it does pay back to invest now though. As I've found out you can wait and pay later, but the cost will be far much larger.
I'm also picky on my hardware. The rule is quite simple: I have to work with this for at least 8 hours a day and therefore second best is not an option. There's three things I care about: keyboard, mouse and monitor. I prefer a regular keyboard, not the Microsoft Natural keyboard kind of type. A friend of mine had (note: had) one of those, and I tried it when I was visiting him. I didn't fancy it at all, felt hampered by it, and since I didn't type like the guys at MS thought I should I missed a few keys. For some it's probably a gift though.
I also want my keyboard to have the right pressure needed to get a key pressed. If it's too heavy I type slower and feel like I have to train my fingers before using it. I've yet to find a keyboard that was too light though. The keyboard should also have the right curvature, and if possible the keys shouldn't say "click". Since I type fast the noise gets slightly annoying.
One thing that is smart to have is a wrist pad for your keyboard. I've got one from 3M with some kind of fancy gel in it. Works beatifully, making my wrists get higher so I don't bend my wrists too much. If the wrists are too low you have to lift your fingers too high up, end up bending the writs and you put unnecessary strain on the hands.
When it comes to mice I'm also picky, if I can choose. Here at work I've got a regular Microsoft mouse, and feel that's ok. Back home I've got a Logitech TrackMan Marble FX. Since I like not to move my arm around too much I tend to choose a trackball if I can so I move my fingers instead. It takes a bit of time to get used to. I've worn out a couple of Kensington Expert mice (also trackballs, both of them) and felt that the horisontal layout of the Kensington put too much strain on my hand. The vertical layout of the Logitech, combined with is curvature feels much more natural. There was also recently published some test results in Norway where a big company had given some of their employees the vertical mouse, AnirMouse. The other employees kept their regular mouse. Those with vertical mice reported less problems with pain, not surprisingly. The vertical layout has been said to be far more ergonomic, but the sales have not really taken off though.
As I've already mentioned I have tendinitis in both my hands. The right hand is the worst, and it comes mainly from working too much with the mouse. Work that needs concentration over a period of time (say an hour) puts a lot of stress on the hand. Precision movement particularly does this. I've therefore tried out a few things, like a pad to rest my wrist on and a movable pad that supports my lower arm (forearm?). Neither really worked. The only thing I've found working well is using the mouse as little as possible. I've become more or less keyboard-orientated, and use it as much as possible. It's not easy when you have mouse-orientated GUIs and applications, but I manage.
Lastly, the monitor. If I get a sloppy monitor my eyes get tired and I get neck/shoulder-pain and headaches. So I simply demand a good one. Here at work I've switched monitor three times before I got one that was good enough. It should have good focus (clear display), good contrast, and support a high enough refresh rate. That way the screen is less tiring to look at, and given the fact that I rest my eyes on it all day long I want it to be good. It's also ok if it's big. I've got a 17-inch here at work, but at home it's a 20-inch. Very often the larger monitors have better specs, but of course they cost more.
Before I finish off I can write a few words about what I do to make the pain go away. What exactly to do depends on where the pain is. One thing that is a common factor though, is to take breaks ever so often. Not long breaks, but small ones. Change the way you sit ever so slightly, look out of the window, check your mail instead of writing, look around, or just stop doing anything and relax for a few seconds. I've never been good at taking a couple of minutes off and doing stretching or other exercises, but these small brakes every minute or two goes well.
The problem with tendinitis is cured by resting the hands. In other words, you can't sit in front of the computer for a while. I found out that I couldn't do that, there was no way I could just quit computing for a couple of weeks. Instead I took regular breaks and held my hands under running water. Alternate between cold and warm water to get the blood circulation up, which is the main reason behind tendinitis (or so I am told).
I think that is about it. The only thing I haven't mentioned is that I make sure I get enough sleep and relaxation. If not I am tired the next day, and that makes just things worse.
Ok, that's my marathon-post for today. If there's anything I've forgotten or any questions feel free to ask.
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Helen Flint (otlaw, 3/7/99 3:52:47 AM)Wow- yes, but how can you make Adobe Photoshop mouseless, keyboard only? Thanx for ALL THE ABOVE !!!
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Morten Wang (NettRom, 3/8/99 5:27:36 AM)Very good question Helen. Unfortunately, my experience tells me that programs like Photoshop (Illustrator, Corel Draw, PaintShop Pro, etc) which all require the use of a mouse for certain tasks are impossible to make mouse-less.
But, it's not very difficult to make less use of the mouse in most cases I've seen. Software companies are becoming better and better at giving their programs keyboard shortcuts which you can use, provided you're running Microsoft Windows though. I haven't got a Mac (but boy do I want one of those G3s) so I don't know how things are working on that platform.
The problem with keyboard shortcuts is that remembering all of them. I'm not even trying. Here's what I do instead:
If there's a task I know I do often, and a keyboard shortcut is available, I'll use it. After three or four uses it becomes natural, and a bit later I remember it.
If there's a task I cannot access directly through a shortcut I instead try to use the menus. Alt+F takes you to "File", Alt+E is "Edit" and so on. Most items in each menu has a key attached to it. As an example I use Alt+E then E for adjusting the preferences in my Netscape Navigator browse. That takes me to "Edit" then "Preferences". This way you can gain easy access to quite a lot of thing you otherwise would've used the mouse for.
If a menu has a sub-menu there's the right-arrow key. With some practice you will be able to navigate the menus using the Alt-key and some other keys.
And (no, I'm not finished yet) quite a lot of the dialog-boxes have underlined letters which you in turn can manipulate using the Alt-key and the letter. That, combined with the Tab-key can make the mouse quite redundant in such situations too.
I did quite a lot of image editing in PaintShop Pro yesterday, giving my web site[1] a required face lift. The task I had to do was quite complicated, but I used the keyboard for all of it.
1: Merge all layers Alt+L, then 'R', then the Enter-key.
2: Decrease colors to 256 Alt+C, then 'D', then '5', then the Enter-key (I didn't need to change any options)
3: Set transparency to background color Ctrl+Shift+V (shortcut) then Alt+S to select what I want, then the Enter-key.
4: Save image Ctrl+S, then Tab to select image type, Down-Arrow to get the select list up, then 'Home' to get to the top, then Down-Arror to get to GIF, then the Enter-key to select the type. Shift-Tab back to file name, write file name, then the Enter-key to save.
As you can see even a program like PaintShop Pro can use the keyboard provided you find out how to do it, and then actually do it. It's slightly time-consuming at first, and it's also something one has to get used to.
Maybe a good first exercise is to hide the task bar and use Alt+Tab & Alt+Shift+Tab to jump between applications? And also use Alt+Spacebar to get to the menu for minimizing/maximizing/moving etc? That way one might be a bit more used to thinking keyboard-use instead of mouse-use.
That's the things I came up with from the top of my head. :)
[1] In case someone's interested I'll shamelessly plug another URL. My backgammon site http://home.sol.no/~warnckew/gammon/ was given a face lift. New graphics, some new text, etc. Now I'm closer to being satisfied with it. :)
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Margaret Penfold (Saada, 3/8/99 8:14:59 AM)Why even PaintshopPro. It is one of the best programmes for shortcuts?
My problems are not with my hands but my legs. When I am concentrating even from the most satisfactory chair my left knee swings outwards and I end up with a shooting pain in leg muscles and a limp that goes on for days. If I try to remember to keep my leg in a sensible position I can't concentrate
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Christy Sheffield Sanford (Christy1, 3/8/99 12:17:28 PM)I sat at my desk for five hours straight yesterday working on nothing but buttons. Trying to create rollovers in Dreamweaver. Simple until I changed my mind about putting the buttons into a table.
Here is a brief quote about Balzac from the translator Henry Reed: "His work habits are well known: the white priest's robe, pint after pint of strong black coffee, long sessions of anything up to eighteen hours."
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Jennifer Ley (jley, 3/10/99 12:16:25 AM)mmmm, as to keyboard short cuts ... I've been using the Mac Option + number short cut so much, I started having trouble with my thumb ... it seems to me that the nature of all of this is 'repetition' -- so if one method bothers one 'part' of me ... I try switching off for a bit
one thing I cannot praise enough tho and that is a new desk with one of those padded wrist supports on the pull out drawer that holds my keyboard and mouse ... that has really helped most of my wrist symptoms.
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Helen Flint (otlaw, 3/12/99 5:48:41 AM)thanx everyone - great topic, but MUST mention 1. STICKY KEYS [i'll send yoo free ] and 2.POWER SEC [ voice only] - cheap versions
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back problems (Helen Whitehead, 3/12/99 3:56:50 PM)Earlier this year I had a slight car accident which knocked my pelvis out of line: conventional medicine told me just to take painkillers, but after three days in the worst pain ever I staggered to a chiropractor for instant relief. Not gone, but it immediately became bearable.
I can recommend a chiropractor! For the kind of physical problem I had -- and I daresay some postural problems would benefit too.
Unfortunately sitting at my desk became really difficult for a while. I am OK now but I do now sympathise with those of you who have pain!
I don't suppose it would harm anyone with back pain to try chiropractic and it might just help.
And I agree with Morten about the value of a good chair. I bless the day I bought a decent one. And my ex-toddler's bathroom step comes in useful under the desk for supporting my feet, as I'm not tall!
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Nancy White (choconancy, 4/13/99 5:58:22 PM)I've found a daily dose of vitamin b complex has greatly reduced my RSI!