How I Defeated Repetitive Stress Injury (RSI) With a Few Minor Adjustments
In 2005, programmer Henrik Varn developed RSI – Repetitive Stress Injury. Within six months, his condition deteriorated so much that he considered a career change. Fortunately, through a combination of actions, he was able to relieve the pain and make a full recovery.
Blast From The Past is a weekly feature on Lifehacker in which we bring old but still relevant posts to life for your reading and hacking enjoyment. This week we will be looking at the RSI.
In early 2005, my forearm muscles started to hurt. At first it was only a mild annoyance, but over the course of six months the situation gradually worsened until it got so bad that I even thought that I would have to change profession and stop programming altogether. I realized pretty quickly that I had RSI – Repetitive Stress Injury.
After about a month of pain, I went to the doctor. He thought I had sore joints and gave me anti-inflammatory pills (which did not help). A little later I went to a specialist, and after some tests, he came to the conclusion that everything is in order with the nerves of my hand. However, he could not answer how I could get rid of the pain.
I also went to a number of physical therapists and tried many different exercises (like strength training) as well as acupuncture and heat therapy. Nothing helped. It was also pretty clear to me that my problem was something they hadn’t encountered before.
So, I started doing my own research on the internet and tried different things. I read the book by Jack Bellis and Suparna Damani “It’s Not Carpal Tunnel Syndrome! RSI Theory and Therapy for Computer Professionals ”which seemed pretty good to me.
I also experimented with different kinds of mice and keyboards. I found the Goldtouch split keyboard and gel wrist rest to work for me. The split (and angled) keyboard allows my hands to stay at a more natural angle when typing. I am using Ullman Penclic Mouse . You hold it like a pen and move it like a normal mouse. Since I hold it like a normal pen, I don’t have to twist my hand like I would with a normal mouse, and it helps a lot.
I also did 10 Rolfing sessions (yes, this is Rolfing, not golf), which I think also helped me ease my muscle soreness.
But the biggest part of the solution for me was to start using a break program that forced me to take regular breaks from typing before I could program for hours without interruption. I was using Linux at the time and it was not easy to find a program that would work for Linux. In the end I found a really great option called WorkPace. I set it up to make me take ten seconds micro-pauses every five minutes and longer breaks (with exercise) every 45 minutes.
Several years ago, when changing jobs, I switched from Linux to Windows, but continued to use WorkPace . I recently (without changing jobs) switched to using a Mac and unfortunately WorkPace is not available for Mac. After some testing, I switched to using RSI Guard instead, which is comparable to WorkPace.
I think the break program along with the ergonomic keyboard and mouse really saved me. Over the course of about six months, my problems gradually disappeared and I can now work without problems.
In hindsight, it seems pretty obvious that you should treat the cause, not the symptom (as when correcting errors). However, none of the doctors and physiotherapists I saw realized this. Instead, they all treated the symptoms in one way or another. That was six and a half years ago, so there is probably more awareness of RSI and computer trauma today, but you never know.
So my advice is, if you feel pain while typing, do something about it immediately. Don’t ignore this and hope that it disappears on its own, because most likely it won’t. Most people have no problems, and therefore they do not pay much attention to ergonomics (why should they – they have no problems). But I had no problem programming for over ten years, and then it started to happen. This is called repetitive stress trauma for a reason – problems arise from repeating the same movement over and over for years.
In my case, the combination of an interrupt routine, an ergonomic keyboard and mouse was critical – without it, I probably wouldn’t be programming today.
How I Defeated RSI | Henrik Varn’s blog