Give me big, chunky and processed any day Blog Discussion

AdrianHi

So I'm sitting her at lunch time wondering if there are any RSI threads on MSE.
This thread is what 3 years old?
If you haven't found an actual solution yet you may well be suffering 3 year later, so I thought I'd post and see how those here were doing with their RSI.

I suffered a period of RSI before and it did go away completely. But it seems once you've had it you can get it again more easily and I've been suffering with it again for the last 16 months. In the last 2 weeks I've managed to dramatically improve my condition to the point where much of the time there is no discomfort or pain at all. I still have to be very careful.

I've got the track ball mice, I've learned to use a mouse left handed. It helps.
I've tried speach recognition software which is far too slow and inaccurate even after 3 hours teaching and use, plus it's useless for computer programming anyway.
I've tried anti-inflamitory drugs like ibuprofen but they are pointless. I have even been going to regular sports injury massage sessions for most of the last 16 months which did enough to move me away from being completely crippled, to in pain but able to function.
My pain is primarily from mouse work, typing does not help but my hands and fingers are OK. It's shoulders, arms, neck and back for me. All tight shortened damaged muscles that cannot heal without taking specific measures and having the patience for them to work.

My solution, which I think is going to be a permanent feature of my life to ensure the condition never returns, isn't too hard to do and good for your general well being anyway.
The clues were, last time my RSI went away I was swimming 2 or 3 times a week, some guy in India has a web site about RSI where is says the "cure" is 40% physio / massages, 40% your own stretching excercises and 20% taking regular breaks.
Since I cannot go swimming with my current work arrangements I combine regular breaks with strecthing excercises.
This is what I do:

As soon as I feel any stiffness or pain coming on I stop working so the damage and pain doesn't get worse. I head off to somewhere private, office disabled toilets and I go through my excercises. These are what my massage person taught me plus swimming strokes. 20-30 breast stroke movements followed by 30-40 back stroke swimming movements, done standing up. This excercises the muscles of shoulder and upper back through their full movement range. I then go on with the other strecthes which treat all the muscles in the body because these strain injuries have a habit of moving round the body if you don't. If anyone is interested I'll find a way of posting up what the other stretching excercises are. Chances are you have your own anyway.
Doing this has had a dramatic effect though I'm not 100% "normal" yet.

That was quite a lot of typing, I'm off to do some stretching now

How are you guys doing with your RSI these days?