wrist strain injury - help!
By squaretile
@squaretile (3778)
Singapore
May 16, 2007 4:29am CST
I think I have strained my wrist. There is a medical term for this right? Not sure whether it's too much typing on mylot or just too much typing and clicking of the mouse in general. Anyone else on myLot experienced this?
How do you prevent this from happening if you also use the keyboard for a lot of typing in your work? Do you have a special keyboard, or special mouse? I have a wrist rest below / next to my keyboard, but i still feel this strain! my right wrist feels a little numb! what should i do for now?
1 person likes this
3 responses
@applefreak (3130)
• Singapore
16 May 07
are you referring to carpal tunnel?
it's very serious and the only way is surgery.
actually it's about the way your work station is organised.
go read up on ergonomics and the recommended ways of organising your work station.
things like increasing the height of the chair so that you are looking down at the computer
and your arm should be at 90 degrees to the keyboard
and learn to use shortcut keys instead of the mouse etc
@squaretile (3778)
• Singapore
18 May 07
thanks to all the posters for your concern and good advice.
nope, don't think it's the serious stage yet, thankfully.
yup, learnt some ergonomics but this still happens! thanks for the tip on shortcut keys instead of mouse. but for mylot it's hard to not use the mouse right?
@applefreak (3130)
• Singapore
19 May 07
actually learning about ergonomics and actually doing it is rather different
sometimes we really have to go to all the trouble to adjust everything
i used to think ergonomics are just some bullshit companies came up with to get you to change your workstation :)
until i started having the tingling feeling in my little finger on my right hand (the 'mouse' hand)
it's getting bad until i'll wake up in the middle of the night feeling numbness on my whole right arm
read up about ergonomics and did what i could to adjust my workstation
things i did
1. changed my mouse to a left hand mouse
2. raised the height of my chair so that my arms are resting on the arm-rest and at 90 degrees to the keyboard
3. adjust the height of the monitor so that i am looking down at it, not straight or up
4. placed my feet flat on something. if the chair is too high to put on the floor, get a small stool
hope these will help your situation too
a colleague just went for surgery for this
and will be going for another one for the other hand :(
@killahclaire (3665)
•
16 May 07
As siad above it is just RSI and can be quite common. Still very painful though.
Obviously the first piece of advice would be cut back on the computer usage but you probably knew that yourself already. Other than that just make sure you are using your rest as effectively as possible and make sure that you are keeping your wrists moving occasionally. Maybe after typing out one or two responses you just give them a good move around and see if that helps.
I am sure there are plenty of other support things on the market nowadays that you may find help if that doesn't.
@ahnah69 (141)
• Singapore
16 May 07
It is call Repetitive Strain Injury. Short form call RSI or known as Carpal Tunnel Sundrome.
It is an manual injury associated with any repetitive activity such as hammering, paino playing and for my case, it is computer use (keyboard & mouse).
OOS (Occupational Overuse Syndrome). Cumulative Trauma Disorder (CTD) and Work Related Upper Liml Disorders (WRULD) are all equivalent expressions to RSI.
