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Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Unrelated to Typing?
hug_the_penguin writes "Betanews is reporting about a Harvard medical school report that suggests Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is unrelated to typing at all. Suggested causes may be genetic disposition, body weight, fractured bones or even pregnancy." From the article: "Now, don't go out typing to your heart's content. Researchers still warned that improper computer use could cause different types of repetitive stress injuries, of which carpal tunnel is incorrectly described as one."
Those science geeks over at Harvard need to devote their time to studying a much more debilitating form of RSI...namely, Nintendonitis (also known as Nintendo Thumb) ^_^
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
I'd always been told it was pressure on the carpal tunnel that caused it, not finger movements. So typing with your wrists pressed against the corner of a desk (or in the case more familiar to me, playing bass guitar with the right wrist pressed against the top edge of the instrument) would cause it, not typing with a nice wrist rest or with hands held high, piano-style, above the desk...
Game dev and music blog
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger"
I mean, doesn't typing just increase flexibility and muscle strength in the wrist?
typing with TWO hands... Its what the other is doing that causes carpel tunnel... ~B
...completely unrelated. Typing isn't repetitive or anything. I blame it on home row personally. Those by-the-book reaches will kill your hands over time.
... or at least not to me.
Years ago I went to the Dr about some pain in my hands and wrists and he determined it was carpel tunnel.
Funny thing though... I don't have issues with typing... in fact, I'd had it for longer than I'd had a computer... and it really only exhibited itself when clutching something, like a pen, mouse or other controller.
Shame... I had it before it became all the rage.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
There goes that lawsuit. Let's see...now that I can't sue over that, maybe I can sue them for my getting fat on the Krispy Kreme's they provide for us every Friday.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
Well I'm not overweight, pregnant or seem to have genetic predisposition and still have it.
And as a programmer I spend all day typing.
Coincidence?
I've always questioned the logic behind it. I placed it as an assumed contributor because it's something that people do in a fixed manner with their hands. I have been an avid computer user for the last 16 years and can say that I have no signs of carpal tunnel. In fact, I've heard of very few cases of it in people around me in the same field who spend upwards of 8-10 hours a day on the computer. I have seen it, however, in people who have a disposition towards weak bones, etc. You know, the guys you won't play football with at the company picnic because they break SOMETHING every year... Xserv
"I love lamp."
Who Can I Sue? 1. Employer 2. Makers of Computers 3. Producers of Operating Systems which require typing / mouse 4. Slashdot
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
I'm right handed, and the carpal tunnel in my left hand is MUCH less than the right hand, and I notice that it hurts much worse when I've been mousing a lot, rather than when I've been typing a lot. I know that a lot of writing with a pen or pencil will cause a big flareup, too.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I find that, for me at least, stress is the biggest factor. Whenever things aren't going well at work, I get wrist pains. But I've done hobby coding for years at home without any problems.
One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say. - Will Duran
I've been using computers frequently since 1992. Mostly keyboard work. Usually for more than six or seven hours at a time. Every day.
And my hands feel fine.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Now the other thing which has always amused me is that it's only touch typists who get RSIs from typing. Those of us with a more erratic style move through a wide enough range of motion that we don't do damage to our joints. Apparently I was smarter than I thought, sleeping through typing class in high school...
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
...one of the reasons listed isn't going to affect anyone 'round here me thinks.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Now we have all these misleading labels on keyboards. Those labels cause me mental stress, which as we all know is very debilitating. I smell lawsuit! Repetitive Warning Label Stress Syndrome
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
Yes, what really does your carpal tunnels in is all of that "one handed" keyboard use. The whole typing thing was just a cover up. Hmm... what's that strange pain in my wrist.
Don't put off until tomorrow what you can leave until the day after.
I'm 40. I've been dealing with RSI since 1993 when it nearly ended my career. The injury built up over several years due to poor posture whilst typing. I still have to do physio exercises every day otherwise I get ill. I've kept my career. In my case it most certainly IS connected to typing. If I do long sessions typing then I get into trouble. I will never regain my former strength and fitness levels as the damage done is so systematic. The only reason I have kept my career is constant attention to my physical fitness and my posture and ergonomics whilst typing.
If you use a computer and don't pay attention to your posture and how you type then you stand a good change of having problems.
I know plenty of musicians that get RSI and that is connected to what they do with their fingers to play their instrument. Flute ergonomics are dreadful and most guitarists, bagpipes and hurdy gurdy players crouch over their instruments - bad ergonomics.
RSI may be connected to the things mentioned in the study but it most certainly IS connected with the task at hand and how it is being performed. The idea that it is not defies credibility.
(Yes, I can type, I am not a "hunt and peck" typist).
I have seen people who "know how to type", as opposed to just knowing where the keys are from years of experience. The horrible contortions I see the human hand perform in order to always stay near the home keys is sickening.
Maybe I just have large hands, but I can't stand keeping them in that cramped and static position. My hands move as much as my fingers when I type. Just resting my hands on the home keys places them in an uncomfortable clubbed-paw shape which I can easily imagine causes severe damage to whatever organs rest within.
That's my theory, anyway.
(*of course I wish I could think fast enough that typing faster would really matter that much. I suppose I could get that sentence out faster if I knew how, but the majority of my day is spent thinking about what to write when I eventually write it.)
Typing about typing is fun to type. Type type type type type type type...
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
After years of using the computer extensively with work, and especially with after hours gaming, MMORPGs and FPS in general, I can tell my right hand has changed and become weaker over time. Not sure if thats the beginning signals for CTS, but I know it wasnt from typing.
"Betanews is reporting about a Harvard medical school report that suggests Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is unrelated to typing at all.
I didn't get mine by typing, I got it from the mouse. Having clicked for so long I finally got sharp pains and the symptoms. And does it hurt.
So I switched to my left hand for the mouse, continue to type and it is slowly getting better.
Might I suggest to researchers to really do some pure no BS research. What they might find is the ergonomics of many of todays offices and computers are the problem. Some I/T people work in closets. And that "touch pad" on my portable, more than once I have thought about taking an electric drill to it to destroy it.
Computers need to fit people, not the other way around.
Nietzsche also said that God is dead. And, my personal favorite, "When you stare into the abyss, sometimes the abyss stares back." It's pretty well established that somewhere in his lifetime, Nietzsche started going crazy. What people have never been able to determine is how far into his writing career it was that it happened. Neat guy to read, but you can see the undertow of madness in his writings.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Over this last summer, the ridiculous amount of typing I was doing caused by ring finger and pinky to go numb. Thinking it was Carpal Tunnel, I went to the doctor, who confirmed to me that Carpal Tunnel is not usually caused by typing.
What she did tell me, however, was that I likely had Ulnar Tunnel Syndrome. Though this is also not caused by typing, it was the resting of my elbow on the desk which applied pressure on the Ulnar Nerve, causing numbness and pain.
Couple this with my career as a professional trombonist, and I had trouble.
The moral of the story is simple - it is not so much how much you type (or perform), it is the position of your hand and arm whilst doing it. Keeping a natural, "open" posture is ultimately the best way to prevent these problems.
I hope the land around you yields, a crop like all the other fields, and then your waiting might make sense...
I wonder if it's possible to get RSI from too much one handed typing? The First question would be which wrist gets RSI first?
We should apply for funding to set up a study. No, wait. What am I thinking. We just need to organize a /. poll.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Many computer users are geeks. ...
Geeks don't have girlfriends.
Uugh.
Well, I'm a bit overweight, not pregnant, and no idea if I have genetic predisposition and been a programmer for over 20 years and I still do not have it. But my knees hurt a little.
From my personal experience in acquiring raises through *cough* favors for my superior, I highly suggest kneepads. What good is it if you make Senior VP in two years if you suffer from bursitis?
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Ambidextrous masturbation.
:-)
Give that right hand a rest.
I want to kill him when he does this, but it's not my fault... for you see, I have:
Carpool Tunnel Syndrome
oh... you're talking about something else?
"I have as much authority as the pope, I just
don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin
My study shows that there's a 90% certainty that a college that is receiving major donations from American Corporations (that are paying large disability amounts to affected workers) are encouraging young college students to do these sort of studies. ie: If you look for something hard enough, you will find enough circumstantial evidence to make it seem true.
Everyone who reads Slashdot probably types a great deal and perhaps plays computer or console games. Anyone here not ever lose track of the time and type/play for an entire evening and have your wrist or fingers get sore? Of course you have.
If you had genetically weaker fingers or wrists, it would merely take less time for the carpal tunnel symptoms to appear than it would for others. That study implies that other "genetically disposed" people wouldn't get carpal tunnel - Sit them at my terminal and let them type code for 10 hours straight per day and we'll see.
While we're on the "Genetically Disposed" bandwagon, let's not forget that corporate America wants that DNA testing to see if you're predisposed to any illnesses that they might have to pay for later in your work career. That's the Insurance Industries "Holy Grail" and don't think that it will never come to pass in the future that you won't be able to get meaningful employment because you're DNA says you're likely to get some condition that they'll have to pay for later. Everyone here probably had to take a physical as a term of employment - what if they added DNA testing to deny you employment because of what you "might" get in the future?
Lk4
"It's what you learn after you know it all that counts", Earl Weaver - Legendary Coach of the Baltimore Orioles
Speaking as somebody who just this passed Wednesday had a doctor's appointment related to repetitive stress from typing..
The report is most likely technichally correct. What many people call carpel tunnel is actually various ligament overuse disorders (which are typing related), rather than nerve compression. One main way to tell, is that nearly all the wrist/forearm/elbow pain, 'itchiness' etc, is related to ligament issues, the nerve compression (which is carpel tunnel disorder) part causes numbness, 'falling alseep' type symptoms etc.
However, the ligament overuse problems, if left untreated for too long, can eventually cause carpel tunnel, because the ligaments and the nerves go through the same tunnels in the wrist, so if the ligaments are inflamed for too long, it can cause long term nerve compression and carpel tunnel disorder.
Basically my advice, is if you're having any wrist/forearm issues: see a doctor early rather than later, because it can get dramatically worse if left untreated.
What's new here? Everything that the betanews report states has long been known in the medical community -- particularly the bit about pregnancy. My wife is currently in her second pregnancy, and she never had any carpal tunnel problems before. But she does now -- if she's at a keyboard too long or crochets too much then her wrist starts to hurt. Her doctor says it's fairly common for pregnant women to suffer carpal tunnel due to increased swelling and the loosening of joints during pregnancy. And all she can do is wear a wrist brace and take tylenol -- there are no anti-inflamatories approved for use while pregnant.
The rest of the info is also well known. A poor hand posture can exacerbate the problem, but it's unlikely to cause it outright.
Do I ever say that a little madness is a bad thing? To quote Jung, "Show me a sane man and I will cure him." I'm tempted to quote from "They're Coming To Take Me Away (Ha-Ha)" but I fear the MPAA would be after me. Nice quote, though.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Um, I thought the whole point was that inflammation of the carpal tunnel caused pressure on the nerve. If use isn't causing the inflammation, then what is?
Can anyone track down the actual report? Are they saying that other repetitive stress injuries are misdiagnosed as carpal tunnel, or are they saying that the carpal tunnel is corretly diagnosed but attributed to the wrong things?
ow ow ow damn keyboard ow ow ow ow ow...
I've been sitting in front of PCs since 1978 - when I was 9. I have no problems with my wrists at all. Though I will agree that sitting at _certain_ workstations my wrist will ache; however, they'll ache from the wrist to the elbow - not just the wrist. I'll either adjust the working conditions or I'll move to another workstation minutes later and no ache at all. It's about the ergonomics of the workstation.
Of course, since I've been typing at a terminal since I was a child, maybe my body kind of 'grew into it.' Could it be akin to a child who starts smoking at 9 and lives to 99 smoking every day of his life and dies peacefully in his sleep of old age; whereas, someone else starts smoking at 30 and dies of lung cancer by age 45 caused by smoking.
So what is it? Conditioning? Poor ergonomics? Lack of exercise?
Of course, the natural position of my fingers, at rest, is to close in on the palm of the hand. I find myself strecthing my fingers before I go to bed.
My job and my hobbies involve typing. There have been days where I spend 16 hours in front of a computer. Despite that, I have never had any symptoms of CTS brought on by my many hours in front of a keyboard. However, I do think that CTS is brought on by repetitive motion. When I was a kid, I spent countless hours playing the original Nintendo. I do remember, at one point, I started getting symptoms of CTS that were aggrivated by playing games. The longer I played, the worse the pain got. Sometimes it would last for several days. In the end, I had to give my wrists time to heal by playing old RPGs, which don't require as much intense use of the gamepad, for a few months. Because of this experience, I do believe that CTS can be brought on by some forms of repetitive motion. Even though I haven't had any problems with a keyboard personally, I certainly think its possible for keyboard use to bring on CTS in some people.
I'm just going from personal experience, so this has no basis in medicine. But when I compute or play video games or whatnot there are two things that really get my wrist hurting.
One, if I play a 6-button arcade fighting game like street fighter and I use my wrist to bring my whole hand up and down on the buttons. I'm basically swinging my wrist back and forth very rapidly. I should be just moving my fingers around.
Two, I learned not to do this, but improper mousing. When you use a computer mouse you should move your whole arm and your wrist should not bend. Watch people and yourself and you will notice that they make the wrist the only joint that is used to move the computer mouse. Not good. Luckily I'm on my way to beating this bad habit. Move your whole arm to move the mouse.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
In my personal experience, it's always been games or gaming that caused my joint problems.
Joystick use during ladder events, or just lots of gaming.
Once I backed off and quit for several days each week, it went away. (Used to have shooting pains going up the underside of both arms from wrist to armpit, plus crackly joints.)
Of course, I have previous damage from blue collar jobs too. I bet there's a lot of low-paid manual labor people that have more problems with it than you could ever get from using computers.... they just don't have fancy names for "my friggin arm hurts".
fascinating genetic mapping, given that emacs users tend to suffer more frequently than vim users... ;-p
does this not suggest, perhaps, that if you have a preference for using emacs, you are more likely to have a genetic predisposition towards carpal tunnel syndrome?
Is carpal tunnel not related to typing the way global warming is not related to greenhouse gases? I'm skeptical.
un burrito me trampeó.
I used to get pains in my elbows and wrists from typing. Improving my office environment mitigated it but not completely. Then I started getting more exercise and I haven't had a problem since. Even running seems to help. The human body isn't supposed sit around on its arse all day. The office environment is terrible for us and we have to make up for that: either change our jobs, or make an effort to get some exercise.
If you did all of that correctly you would see how the angle of your wrists becomes and less natural. Now imagine typing with your standard (or worse.. laptop) keyoard close to your chest. The unnatural angle does not bode well for your wrist.
Basically 75% (rough number) of people that come into these docs complaining of chronic wrist pain don't even need splints. They are advised to get a trackball (much easier on the wrists), type with the keyboard farther away, and have the top of the monitor at eye level, and sometimes to get an ergonomic keyboard. Most people report that their symptoms are gone within 2-4 weeks if they keep up their new setup. I know a lot of /.'ers are pretty down on things like ergonomic keyboards and consider them little more than overpriced gimmicks but the truth is they are a far cry less expensive than carpal tunnel surgery and relatively effective.
As a microbiologist I can also tell you that pretty much any disease/disorder/etc. is influenced by things like genetics, age, weight, hormone levels, etc. etc. Saying that carpal tunnel isn't affected by poor body angle and repetetive motions (like typing) is like saying that skin cancer isn't caused by bathing yourself in UV radiation all day and that it is only attributable to genetics, and body type. The other problem with this report (which we also have not seen yet) is that it is a correlation study in the negative. They are saying that they cannot find a correlation so therefore it must not exist. That is even worse that the positive correlation studies where two trends coincide so they conclude causation. My view is that typing does aggravate carpal tunnel but so does genetics that make you susceptible to inflammation.
...and on a related note, "Oxygen not necessary for carbon-based life forms to live!"
One of the secretaries in my office just had a child two months ago. She's having a lot of pain in her wrists that was somehow induced by the pregnancy. Ironically, I just found out about this yesterday afternoon, when she popped into the office to pick up her paycheck.
I'm curious as to what percentage of carpal tunnel sufferors are women.
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
I remember when I was a Jazz major, one of my professors alluded to Musicians getting it. Chick Corea (pianist) believed it was a sort of subconcious resentment. That you need to improve your relationship with your instrument (keyboard). When he reestablished his relationship with his instrument, the carpal tunnel went away. Just a theory, but there may be some truth in it. How often does one associate the keyboard with stressful work?
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
I don't think keyboard use is the source of most of this...it's much more due to pointing devices. Switching from mouse to trackball has been very helpful to me.
-=Maggie Leber=-
I've been using computers frequently since 1992. Mostly keyboard work. Usually for more than six or seven hours at a time. Every day.
And my hands feel fine.
I've been an IT professional for 10 years and my hands were fine until I bought Unreal tournament 2004 and got addicted to it and played for several hours each day, every day for almost a year. Now I'm having lots of problems with my mouse-hand fingers, knuckle joints, wrist and most recently my right elbow hurts like hell down inside the joint. I have stopped gaming cold turkey for two weeks now, and my wrist and fingers are starting to heal, but my elbow seems to be getting worse. Each morning it is very stiff inside the elbow joint and feels like somebody jabbed a big long needle into it the first time I move it. Ibuprofen helps the pain, but I think I should probably go see a doctor because it feels like that cartilage layer that keeps the raw bones from rubbing together in my elbow has a hole worn thru it.
[And that "touch pad" on my portable, more than once I have thought about taking an electric drill to it to destroy it.]
Many times I've caught myself using the touchpad with my wrist bent backwards as far as it goes and middle finger straight down sliding around. I look down and think, "What the hell am I doing".
I would think "awareness" is one of the biggest preventers of RPI. You just have to train yourself to think before you type. Usually it only takes 2 or 3 seconds to get into a better position.
I was concerned that my computer job was giving me the pain I was having in my hands and unable to even hold silverware, etc. It turned out to be the pressure on my carpal tunnel area from my bicycle handles.
I started walking to work instead and the problem went away. I was surprised after all of the attention that typing gets for causing carpal tunnel. Glad to hear those Harvard people are figuring it out.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Kienbock's disease is much worse and believed to be caused by repeptitive micro-trauma (aka typing). An orthopedic doctor thought that I might have it, but I was very lucky, and it ended up just being an occult (hidden) ganglion cyst. Basically a bone in your wrist dies from lack of blood supply, and it hurts to turn doorknobs, pickup small objects, and do... well just about anything. So, use proper hand position when typing, and don't overdo it!
http://tinyurl.com/4aanx
A musician without the RIAA, is like a fish without a bicycle.
Thank you Harvard. Now I don't need to assume blaming my carpal tunnel on my keyboard, but instead I can blame it on my mother who also has carpal tunnel. And keyboarding never does hurt (even though I do it about 8-12 hours a day). The worst thing is that I go out bowling every couple months. That is the most painful thing, and often time using staplers in mid air will hurt.
www.sushibarnetwork.com
I call bullshit on this.
In the course of my job, I sometimes spend all day coding, and sometimes I spend all day in meetings, etc. After spending all day coding in emacs, I can definitely feel the strain in my wrists. They'll be sore for the rest of the evening and sometimes into the next day. While I thankfully haven't had a real problem with RSI (I've known people that are almost crippled by it), I do worry that it is only a matter of time before the inflamation builds to the point that it will interfere with my job.
Since when did operating systems become a religion?
I don't need Harvard to tell me that. My mom has it (gets it when typing, she's also an artist and a chef and those activities can trigger it), my sister has issues with it from being a musician, and I have it from years of typing. Coincidence? Nope. My father is a musician, types a lot, and has no problems with it. However my mom's, sister's, and my own wrists are smaller physically which leaves less room for things to expand in there.
Pressure on the wrist CAN trigger it, but that isn't the only cause. Take riding a motorcycle for instance - there is no pressure on the wrist, yet the repeated extension of the wrist from throttle movements (I race them, so this is frequent and full-range movement) can give me some carpal-like symptoms. However that could just be a condition which is caused by the existence of other factors.
I've started using a trackball which helps, only now I get a pressure spot on the lower right side of my right palm from that resting on the desk. One of those gel pads might help, we'll see... Generally though I limit the length of typing I do (which is hard when you do what I do), take frequent breaks, and stretch routinely to keep things more fluid. Seems to help.
But that just begs the question: what causes pregnancy?
A different study conducted by Yale medical school suggests that sex may not, after all, be the cause of pregnancy. In a sample consisting of young Yale undergraduates who were pregnant, over half said they had not been having sex with their boyfriends.
Find free books.
The parent's post needs modded ++++FUNNY =/ :(
I dont see how a blatant funny joke gets offtopic
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in mud. Soon, you realize the pig is dirty, and he likes it.
It's got so bad that I can no longer insult anyone properly
..from carpet funnel syndrome for years.
ssh -D
... or perhaps maybe I have ssh tunnel syndrome.
ssh -L
ssh -R
FLR
I am generally healthy, not overweight, have not broken any bones. Pregnancy, huh? My wife has been pregnant two times, so that must be it!
doctor: "Well I can assure you that typing on a keyboard isn't the cause of your carpal tunnel syndrome. Are there any other activities you engage in that could possibly put so much strain on your wrist?"
Emacs Pinky is real. The seeping generalization that RSI is not due to typing is incorrect.
If you don't use Emacs, just watch someone who does: his poor left pinky will be continually moving, depressing control keys. After doing that hours a day for months/years, he'll typically get RSI.
To get around this, it is common for Emacs users to map "Caps Lock" to a control key, so that the poor pinky doesn't have to continually press down in such an unnatural way (it will just have to move a key to the left and go down). But one you've ruined it, you can still get Emacs Pinky.
A simple way to check the hypothesis would be to just see how many vi users have "Emacs pinky" symptoms. I've never known a vi user with Emacs pinky. Given that "Emacs pinky" has been spontaneously identified and named, I think it is real, or at least worth spending effor to dismiss if you want to argue RSI is not due to typing.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
I've been having intense pain, numbness and muscle lock-up in both arms for several years. After several Orthopedists, Neurologists, CT scans, MRI scans, EMG's and pain management, an old acquaintance mentioned Thoracic Outlet Syndrome to me. So, I asked my Primary Care Physician about it and was told "there's no such thing." Not to be dissuaded, I finally located a specialist at the UT Medical Center in Knoxville (TN). After some tests, guess what? TOS was confirmed. I'm still waiting to have the surgery next month but, finally, an end is in sight. Interestingly enough, I was told by the specialist that over half of the patients he sees had already had Carpal Tunnel surgery unnecessarily.
On a side note, when the Pain Management doctor prescribed "MS Contin," I asked the pharmacist when Microsoft had entered the pharmacutical business. He laughed and explained that it was Morphine Sulfate. Naturally, I was relieved...
I think the elephant in the living room might be the correlation between driving and RSI. Practically everybody drives, often for more hours than they type. But do they pay attention to their posture and wrist position in the car?
People, our bodies are not designed to sit in a single position, doing the exact, same motions over and over. We are not robots, and even robots eventually wear out. Millions of years of evolution (or a gleam in your favorite god's eye) developed us as doing a wide variety of tasks in a large number of flexible positions!
In 1999, I switched careers from "computer techie", fixing and selling computers, to databases and software engineering.
Much more rewarding, satisfying, and I get to work at home, with Linux pretty much all the time now, doing away with the Windows frustrations.
Anyhow, at first I got a big, powerful, cheap desktop computer, a big monitor, etc. It wasn't 8 months before my hands started to really ache, often quite badly.
So, I bought a Microsoft Ergo keyboard. Within a week or two, I noticed a HUGE difference! Whereas before I had to position everything "just so" to avoid wrist pain, with the Ergo, I could just sit however I liked, whatever felt comfortable.
Some years later, I bought a Dell laptop. (it runs Fedora Core) At first, I used it as a plug-in replacement for my desktop system, but as time went on, I found that I more and more preferred to work in various positions all over the house. Sometimes I'm slacking on the couch. Sometimes, I'm hunched over the patio table.
I'm almost never at the "coding table" that I used to have in the office.
I'm pretty sure it's the variation in my posture. I just haven't had much trouble with CTS. Sometimes, I feel a low grade ache in my left hand after a few weeks of heavy coding.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
On even days:
announced that is shockingly totally unrelated to . What causes it is instead .
On odd days:
announced that is shockingly totally unrelated to . What causes it is instead as we thought before.
I used to have RSI to the point where if I lifted my hands above my head, my smaller digits would instantly become numb. Right now it is mostly (99%) self-healed and gone. Read below for my solution.
:)
RSI is caused by stress, lack of sleep, and poor diet (lack of sleep is itself also stress). If you try to type faster than is comfortable, and unconsciously pound on the keyboard, you will get it. You are even more likely to get it if you work in a very stressful environment. However, if you type without hurry and only apply enough effort to activate the key and no more, then you won't get it.
If you have RSI, stop typing faster than is comfortable. Don't reach for your ultimate typing speed. Stop pounding the keyboard -- apply only enough force to activate the key. Eat decent food and sleep 8 hours a day. It would also help to use a wrist exercise equipment, such as a physiotherapy ball/gel, or even some sports grip equipment (often a spring with two handles), to strenghten up your wrist by exercise, but do not overdo it. If you stretch your wrists -- do it gently and do not overstretch (this is important!). And watch your RSI go away.
An important point is not to reintroduce stress through stressful stretching and exercise. So when stretching, don't go crazy and don't push it hard -- go easy on your hands and relax.
You may slip back into the old pounding the keyboard spazmatically routine, so you have to be careful not to regress into a bad habit once you get rid of it.
Could you please knock it off with that girlish anime smile? It's annoying. And girlish.
TIA.
Computer users have been blaming keyboards and mice for wrist injuries for a long time ..... ever since computers have been capable of displaying pictures of naked women, to be exact.
My private theory is that the wrist injuries are more likely to be caused by wanking over all that pr0n, than by using keyboards or mice.
I'd like to agree with the above, I've had RSI for around 18 months but its mostly gone now. Change your attitude at the keyboard and relax. In addition Yoga and installing workrave www.workrave.org seem to have been the most beneficial to me. Don't give up, if you treat your body right, RSI will clear up, but it does take time.....
Had carpal tunnel for a while. Then as soon as switched to MS natural keyboard, the pain went away. Figured it was the angle of my hands vs the forearm... with a natural keyboard, it's flat, there's no angle, while with a standard kb, wrists are always laid back at an angle, especially if your elbows are on your desk.
So thanks Microsoft... your products can literally cure diseases!
"If you could only see what I've seen with your eyes..." - Roy Batty
It's "empirical". On Dvorak, "c" and "r" are next to each other. :)
Home keys? What are those? I remember using some sort of automated typing tutor years ago and giving up on it after I figured out how to type more efficiently without following any such. (I too have big hands which probably makes the difference.)
sulli
RTFJ.
I cured what I thought was "RSI" using this "mindbody" approach:
.doc.
http://www.rsi.deas.harvard.edu/handout.doc
(Coincidental that Harvard is hosting this document, maybe the researchers should look at it themselves)
Here is the Google cache for those who don't want to open a
I suffered for 1.5 years (where I didn't work because I didn't think I could) before I found that my cure was a completely psychological approach. From my research of CTS (as well as what my doctor told me), it is completely unrelated to typing. And from my experience with "RSI" and understanding what it actually was, I no longer believe you can actually hurt yourself from typing too much.
I now type sometimes all day long without taking many breaks. I play guitar, bass, and drums. I don't worry about posture at all. Ergonomics are only a way for me to get comfortable, not to avoid injury. I have no pain at all, and don't worry about ever having "RSI" again. It's been 3 years since I cured myself.
Please read up on the approach I'm talking about here before you flame me. It actually makes sense once you put all the pieces together. You can also search for "sarno tms" to find more info.
I started on computer when I was about 10 years old (Commodore Vic-20) and have been a heavy keyboard user ever since. If you think keyboards today are poor, you haven't spent enough time on a Sinclair, Osbourne, or Tandy. My wrists have a *lot* of miles on crappy keyboards.
:-)
I can still type and code heavily for hours at a stretch, and have no trouble with carpal tunnel *right now*. Interestingly though, while in my early 20's I started noticing early signs of the syndrome (numbness, wrist and arm pain, twinges). My mother (a lifetime Cust Service phone rep) was suffering heavily from CT at the time, recovering from a CT operation and possibly unable to work on keyboards again, and I thought that I might be doomed to the same fate.
My CT symptoms were halted, and went away however. Interestingly, I had just started martial arts training at about the same time that I was getting hit with the CT symptoms. Now, fifteen years later, I am still doing martial arts, still coding and keying, and 100% CT free.
I firmly believe that the heavy wrist stretching and training involved with my kung fu training was the key to staying CT free and conditioning myself. As a result, my wrists have always been in a vast variety of motions and positions, and not stuck in stiff repetitive positions.
Kung Fu cures CT
----- And all that the Lorax left here in this mess was a small pile of rocks, with one word...UNLESS.
I'm surprised with all the responses to this thread so far, no one has mentioned the possible benefits of switching keyboard layouts. I had RSI, which I was told was notcarpal tunnel, several years ago, and it lasted a long while, with various levels of discomfort. A colleague came to work with me and needed my computer, and explained how he was used to the Dvorak layout. I switched, and the level of discomfort went down dramatically and has never flared up to the same levels.
Mencken had it right. So glad that's old news.
So maybe it's not the keyboard that's the problem, it's the mouse?
:-) (NOT!)
I've heard more stories about elbow trouble from gamers than I've heard about carpal tunnel from anyone else.
(original A/C with sore hand/elbow responding here...)
I think you hit the nail on the head here. While I use my left hand on the keyboard quite a bit for jump/crouch, arrow key movement, etc, my right hand on the mouse and all the muscle tenseness and actions while manipulating the mouse is what's causing my grief. Maybe I should sue Logitech instead
My fingers in my left hand get quite a workout on the keys, and do hurt a little bit after marathon gaming sessions, but that feels just like plain sore muscles and that pain always goes away after a night's sleep/rest. I'm also a guitar player and my left hand fingers have always been in pretty good muscle tone from that.
It's definitely the "death grip" I hold onto my MX-700 mouse and the poor mouse-arm-posture I have while gaming that's gotta be the root cause of this problem.
Ouch... my right elbow is in excrutiating pain as I type this. This pain is not fun at all.
Before using computers, I have no signs of carpal tunnel, after using them repetitively for just one year, I got an advanced case of CTS, which i recieved treatment for months afterward... I was given one peice of advice from the doctor, which is to keep my hands and wrist level with eachother, since doing that, my CTS has remissed into nothingness.
I have several friends who blow glass, they are constnatly twisting a peice of glass in front of a torch, severall of them had been complaining about CT pains, and i noticed their wrist was bent on a 90 degree angle when twisting the glass, I told them about holding their wrist straight to prevent it, and they started doing so. They as well no longer have CTS pains.
Genetics etc may play a part, but repetative unnatural actions are definetly the main contributing factor, and this article saying it's not caused at all by those actions is complete BS. Flame my post if you want, but nothing will possibly change my first hand experience.
Seems similar news was reported here on Slashdot last June, based on a Danish study.
Mencken had it right. So glad that's old news.
Its the sounds of money changing hands.
Guess who doesnt like to pay out all those workmans comp settlements.
Guess who likes 'research money'.
Guess what effect this will have on the pocketbooks of corporations that routinely force thier workers to type thier tendonds to death as part of thier job.
I have spend a few thousand dollars and 4 years trying to get the pain caused by using a mouse under control. Chiropractors, Hand Doctors, dozens of different mouses, wrist braces, ice, heat etc... What has helped me the most is forcing myself to use good posture when in front of the computer and obviously...indoor rock climbing. Seriously rock climbing allows me to strengthen my hands and stretch the muscles at different angles. I am very careful not to push it. My climbing is a type of physical therapy, so I don't try to impress anyone trying to climb a 5.11c. Also, educating myself on the topic of RSI has helped. This book is by far the best. Dr. Pascarelli's Complete Guide to Repetitive Strain Injury : What You Need to Know About RSI and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
I notice that my wrists tend to hurt more when i'm using a chair with arm rests. There's something about typing or mousing while my elbows are sitting on arm rests seems to make things much worse.
This is *news*? Anyone with half a brain knew this was pure and unadulterated bullshit. For the love of Bob, you can get CTS from using a pen! If you're getting CTS, you're getting CTS!
RSI in general is what most people should be worried about, and what most people who 'think' they have CTS actually have. And RSI is far more common from mousing than using the keyboard.
So the fact that I woke up with my right hand's thumb, index finger, middle finger, ring finger (to a lesser degree), and most of the palm numb after spending 22 straight hours typing up my undergraduate thesis was a coincidence then? I was the impression that was a textbook symptom of carpal tunnel.
Seems like a majority of the +4 and +5 posters have been attesting their pain to mouse usage, and I'd have to agree. Typing does not necessarily induce any pain in my forearms and wrists, but using a mouse does. I find that in order to maintain precise control over the mouse, I apply a significant amount of pressure at the base of my palm and wrist region. This way my fingers are elevated, and float so I can use my fingers to move the mouse with greater accuracy. Now after some time, I'll begin to notice pain and inflamation in my mouse hand (I'm a southpaw) while typing. So is the resolution, I need a wrist pad, or maybe a better designed mouse? One that'll allow me greater control, but a lower profile? Maybe something that tracks the motion of my finger on a pad as a pointer. But no matter the design of the mouse, either way I still apply the same ammount of downward pressure on my wrist if I were trying to move my index finger about on the table with great precision. Oh, maybe a camera mounted just above the screen, that followes where my eyes are focused on, and extra keys on the keyboard to replace the mouse buttons.
Ok that's enough rambling on for one day.
I hate all sigs, even this one.
My Osteopath said something last time I saw him about how he's had two (osteopathic) journal articles published, and that after the third one you're considered an expert (he was talking more to the 3rd year osteopathic student who was observing than myself).
... "well, unless there's a specific cause", and demostrates how someone might habitually hold a phone up to their ear with their shoulder. "Then you stop the specific cause of the lesions, and fix them again."
Anyways, the conversation was on how one of my legs was shorter than the other, and that it was shorter because the bones in my right lower leg were all tweaked out of place. One of his articles was on how the bones in the carpal tunnel or forearm get displaced, leading to pressure against the nerve. M.D.s view this as cause for surgery, D.O.s who practice in the tradition of Osteopathy founder Andrew Taylor Still ("structure and function are interrelated") find it acceptable to just put the bones back where they should be, by releasing the muscle and fascial tissue strains that pull said bones out of position. (He said that in all his years [25+] of practicing, he'd only had one patient who actually had a short leg after he was done with them. Usually, "short legs" are the result of the hips being out of balance, leg bones being all knoted up, etc.)
Western medicine's two tools are drugs and surgery. Dr. Still, a traditionally-trained doctor in the civil-war era, formulated the Philosophy of Osteopathy after he was powerless to prevent three of his children from dying from viral meningitis. Osteopathy's distinguishing characteristic is a gentle form of manipulation that puts the body back like it's supposed to be.
I myself tried everything - trackballs, posture, keyboards, massage, chiropractic, acupuncture, etc... I bumped from M.D. to M.D.: "your arms are fine", "just need to exercise more", "go to this chiropractor", "need to stop doing _____ so much", "gonna need surgery", etc. Finally I said "phooey on them", and started the "alternative" medical rounds.
Didn't get any relief until I found my present Cranial Osteopath. "Your arms don't work because your left hip is higher than the other", iirc. Doing his ten-fingered detective work, he wandered around that first visit, feeling (no need for a $1500 MRI/cat scan/etc) all the structures that weren't where they were supposed to be. "And it's all coming from right.... (searching) here", and he settled on a spot just to the left of my heart. He pushes, "breath in... and out", pushes again, repeat. All to release a specific strain in my body's myofascial tissue that resulted from a knock to the head 7 years earlier. Every visit since has been to release other traumas that've been stored in my body for a very long time. We're almost done, and I'm feeling really good.
"Do these strains ever come back?"
"No."
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
I've been using workrave (FOSS) - it has helped me not only recover, but keep my energy level up.
I have it set to a 30 second break every 15 minutes, and a 10 minute break every 50 minutes. I use the 30 second breaks to stand up and stretch, and the 10 minute breaks to go for a walk and otherwise stretch and breath.
The breaks can unfortunately be snacking cues, but I try to avoid that.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
50% insightful, 50% troll: sure wish the moderators weren't so incontinent.
Incontinent? You mean they have a tendency to wet themselves? I guess it is possible, but I think the word you're looking for in "inconsistent." I don't mean to mock you; I just worry that you think you used the right word and you might embarrass yourself at something more important.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Me: Doctor, it hurts when I go like this.
Doctor: Then don't do that.
I just love modern medicine!
I'm pretty pissed off about the situation today. Drug companies have a stranglehold on medical education, and M.D. students learn minutia of human anatomy, and how drugs work to fix the problem, or what surgery is needed (and how to do the surgery). Nothing about nutrition or other therapies that don't cost a bajillion dollars...
I was just reading an article in a July issue of Business Week (magazine) about how 90% of heart surgeries don't do anything for the patient, long term, beyond the benefit as a placebo. Heart bypass surgery, angioplasties, etc., account for tens (maybe hundreds) of billions of dollars a year in medical charges.
And the patients don't really care because someone else (insurance) is paying the bill. "The inmates are running the asylum". When my grandmother was going through cancer therapy, I had the distinct impression that the whole charade was set up to bilk Medicare for all Grandma was worth. When grandma got tired of their treatment program (which kept her alive for a couple extra months, maybe) they handed her off to Hospice care, to refocus on their next victim.
Patients think that, "with all the money they made off of me, I should be getting perfect results", and when some happen to get a less-than-satisfactory outcome, they go straight to a lawyer, to prevent the doctor from profiteering off their misfortune.
You need to look at my other comment in this story, surgery never fixes the actual problem, on a superior treatment modality (1000x better than drugs & surgery) for biomechanical problems..
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
i gotta say though the drugs they give me for it are great.
i have a cat named george. RAWR!
So when stretching, don't go crazy and don't push it hard -- go easy on your hands and relax.
You know you're getting old and really out of shape when you overstretch muscles and experience pain after wiping your ass. Insert goatse jokes here.
In my experience, that one is the most important step of all. From what I've seen, muscle mass and strength seem to be directly related to RSI. It also explains why women are more predisposed to RSI than men.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
"To get around this, it is common for Emacs users to map "Caps Lock" to a control key, so that the poor pinky doesn't have to continually press down in such an unnatural way"
-- IF you use that foolishness known as home row.
I move my hands around a lot on the keyboard. I keep the centre of my hand over the most likely strike area. I also have the keyboard far from my body, and supported by my forearm muscles (not wresting on my wrist). Any time I have pain, it's in the right wrist after using the mouse a lot (in a casual way, that is wresting my wrist on the table and pivoting it, instead of using the whole arm).
I think my new MX-1000 is partially to blame for this; standard, non-contoured mice have more to enourage you to use the arm instead of the wrist.
I also use Dvorak to minimize the amount my hands have to swing around; my left hand can be pretty much stationary while pecking away at the vowels, while the right hand moves to the correct consonants. On a QWERTY keyboard, both hands have to be in constant motion, and to much greater average trip lengths than on a Dvorak. Home row is for suckers!
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I had carpal tunnel from all the gaming I was doing (specifically Desert Combat.... it was like Desert Combat Syndrom). My wrist and hand were going numb and tingling after a while! Rather than go get surgery or take drugs to kill the pain (which is what most normal doctors would suggest) I went and had this deep muscle massage done called Active Release Therapy. It's very intensive and hurts like a mother fucker BUT after one 30 minute treatment... I was totally pain free. From what my practioner told me, it's just a matter of flattening out all the muscle knots that occur from the wear and tear. So now between coding and gaming, I do some simple hand/wrist stretching excerises and there hasn't been a problem since! The doctor who initially demonstrated these excercises has since retired but I found a snapshop on the internet archives: http://web.archive.org/web/20000304050523/http://w ww.orthohelp.com/exercts.htm
Game/Code ON my brothers and sisters!
I personally like the "That which does not kill me only makes me stranger" line from Ozy and Millie.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
I've used mice and keyboards for about 20 years (mouse since the ST and Keyboard since long before that) but I got a mouse in work that required a thumb/little finger pinch grip to use and suddenly (well, after about 2 years) BAM I can't use a mouse anymore without my hand going numb. I have a vertical mouse I can use all I want but within seconds of using a normal mouse my fingers start tingling. Typing is still fine but I've always used decent keyboards and typing posture anyway.
Well, you threw the first blow so here's my reply.
Ergonomic keyboards aren't just bad because they cost a lot, and they break in a month. I had a logitech ergonomic keyboard go out (keys started failing in about a month, and went to unusable after about 6 months). I'm not one who abuses keyboards either, the only reason I tried ergonomics was because it was supposed to be faster. That's not the real issue though.
Ergonomics is like landscaping. It might work great for someone else's yard/wrists, but yours will invariably be different. I'd say lowering stress, or learning some good key form will help more than any ergonomic keyboard. Btw, you can get key form from playing the piano, or even the trumpet.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Carpal tunnel syndrome (something that I suffered with) is in fact not caused by typing. Using braces and typing less will ease symptoms temporarily but google "tms sarno" for the real, free, simple cure.
I'm a big tall mofo.
I'm actually an Orthopaedic surgeon - treatment for this is either a corticosteroid injection, anti-inflammatories, and/or a thumb/wrist splint. Once conservative treatment(I.e. non-operative) fails to provide relief, a simple same day surgery to release the constricting fascial band around the tendons in the wrist almost always works to provide relief. Go see a hand surgeon to be treated correctly, and not your family medical doctor.
..........FULL STOP.
Guyon's Canal syndrome (Ulnar tunnel) occurs specifically in the hand/wrist where the ulnar nerve travels (usually exacerbated by bike riding/jack hammers). Cubital tunnel syndrome is from compression of the ulnar nerve in the elbow ("funny bone" area), and it is seen in people who flex/extend their elbow a lot, among other things.
Go see an orthopaedic hand surgeon for correct treatment. Elbow splinting at night should be tried at first. Basically you use something to wrap around the elbow to keep it from bending at night. SUrgery should always be the last resort, unless you are having severe muscle wasting in the hand.
..........FULL STOP.
If you get RSI (or similar) in your dominant hand, then learn to use the mouse with your "weak" hand. Seriously. Think about it - you use your dominant hand for most things, and then when you're in front of a PC you go and use the same hand for something with the same small repetetive movements, while your other hand (which hardly gets any use anyway) sits idle.
I used to get all sorts of tendon pains through the top of my hand, especially when mouse clicking. Forcing myself to use the mouse in my left hand (I'm right handed) took a couple of weeks to get used to, but all my problems went away after a month or so of "going south" and have never returned.
Plus, when you sit down at someone's computer who's left handed (or right handed if you're a lefty), you can use their mouse without moving the thing over the other side of the keyboard (which would normally both slow you down and piss them off).
Try it. You have nothing to lose.
I'm a perfectionist but I'm trying to cut back.
Your pain is quite possibly not caral tunnle syndrom. I started having really bad wrist pain similar to CTS so I went to a doc. He told me:
1) Type in the proper position: top of monitor at eye level, keyboard farther away, hands held above like playing piano (all stuff I know already and practice)
2) Sell the motorcycle!?! He said the bike's heavy vibration (think Harly) made it worse.
So I sold the bike and wore a brace for a while. Then I happened upon a chiropractor (insert cynisism here). Guess what? It wasn't CTS at all! There is a common nerve injury where a nerve beneath the forearm muscle gets pinched and it is frequently misdiagnosed as CTS. A little (generally very painful) deep tissue work at the spot corrects this. To find it (you should talk to a doc or chiro), hold your hand parralel to the floor, plam down. From the back side of the hand, trace your forearm up to 1 or 2 inches below the elbow area, give or take. Start poking the area firmly with your thumb and move your thumb around until you find the spot that hurts the most. That would be where the therepy is needed. You will need to work the entire area VERY FIRMLY (don't be afraid to cry) while moving the offended wrist up and down, side to side, and making and releasing a fist, all very slowly. A chiro would be a better place to learn this. However, I know it works and I really want to beat down the other doc for making me sell my bike!!! Problem solved, except I need a motorcycle again.