Carpal Tunnel
When I finished hacking away on Roller this past Saturday, my fingers hurt from typing so much. Who knows why, I didn't add that much code. Must've been all the keystrokes to run Ant, start Tomcat, and test stuff. Yeah, we need more tests - but those won't help tweak CSS. Yesterday, all I did was review Hibernate in Action, so no coding, but a fair amount of typing. By the time I went on a bike ride yesterday afternoon - my left hand's left-most fingers were curled up naturally and my forearm was aching. Carpal Tunnel has set in quite nicely in my left forearm. I can still type, as evidenced by this post - but it definitely hurts and it seems like I could do some serious damage if I keep it up.
Herein lies the problem. I took this week off from my regular gig to concentrate on the Spring book. So I need to be typing like a madman all week - but my body is not cooperating. Rather, it's trying to tell me something - "you're not cut out for this this much coding/typing." So what should I do? I've had these same symptoms before - and when I did, I got a massage and took a couple of days off. That's a bit difficult this week with my livelihood depending on a pain-free left arm/wrist/fingers. I've booked a 10:00 massage - let's hope that gets me through the week. I definitely need a longer-term solution though. It'd be nice to write this book w/o typing, just talking.
Related: Carpal Tunnel in March 2006.
Posted by Kurt Wiersma on March 22, 2004 at 04:29 PM MST #
Posted by Lance on March 22, 2004 at 05:49 PM MST #
Posted by Matt Raible on March 22, 2004 at 06:30 PM MST #
Posted by Bill on March 22, 2004 at 07:10 PM MST #
Posted by Jeff Duska on March 22, 2004 at 08:15 PM MST #
As a suggestion for this week. Do lots of exercise and use a micropause program (WorkRave is good).
Good luck
Posted by Koz on March 22, 2004 at 09:05 PM MST #
Posted by Will on March 22, 2004 at 11:25 PM MST #
Posted by James A. Hillyerd on March 22, 2004 at 11:39 PM MST #
There are three types of things you can do to reduce the stress on your arms. Mechanically, a good ergonomic keyboard will make a difference. If you can find a decent low-profile keyboard, that will help too. Using a wrist rest is a plus, and I'd also suggest trying out a trackball if you're doing a lot of mousing around.
Environmentally, make sure that you're sitting in the right position. When sitting at your desk, your thighs should be parallel with the floor, you should be sitting straight, your arms should rest naturally on the desk and you should be looking down on the monitor a little. There's more information here: [http://www.nih.gov/od/ors/ds/ergonomics/computer.html] (if you can excuse the exceptionally tacky animated GIF)
The final thing is to change your behaviour. Koz's suggestion of using a micropause program and doing regular exercises is spot on, but I'd add that getting up leaving your desk every now and then will do you good too (I find it useful to head off and make a coffee when I'm having trouble with a chewy problem: the break somehow helps to focus my mind)
Posted by Simon Stewart on March 22, 2004 at 11:52 PM MST #
Posted by Michael Zucker on March 22, 2004 at 11:55 PM MST #
Posted by chris on March 23, 2004 at 12:08 AM MST #
Posted by Steven Citron-Pousty on March 23, 2004 at 02:54 AM MST #
Posted by François Beausoleil on August 12, 2004 at 09:34 PM MDT #