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Comment by ijidak | Hacker News Reader

FYI, I thought my programming career was over due to RSI.

Now, I only type while wearing long-sleeves.

And of course, I still have to take regular breaks.

I no longer suffer RSI symptoms. I'm guessing because it increases blood flow to the area and perhaps the warmth helps keep ligaments and muscles flexible and loose.

Simple solution, but took a while to figure out.

Hopefully this helps someone reading this.

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I love these simple solutions that may take years to discover but are shamefully obvious after said discovery.

For the longest time, I'm talking near a decade, after working for a few hours, I'd get this unbearable neck and shoulder pain. Even after the workday it would last long until the night. I am not ashamed to say that I would be almost in tears some days. Not because of the level of pain, but because it was constant and I was frustrated.

Finally, almost as if by accident, I simply pushed my chair back a bit and extended my arms while typing. The pain went away almost immediately. I had been working with my shoulders hunched up the whole time, causing all manner of muscle tension and fatigue.

All I had to do was extend my arms and let my shoulders drop.

Thank you for sharing! I recently started working from home and had the stiffest neck after a few days. I realized I needed to raise my screen to eye-level again (as I had at the office).

Long sleeves and fingerless gloves definitely help, especially if you're the type to always have cold hands.

(I've written about my experiences with RSI as well: https://www.gustavwengel.dk/overcoming-rsi)

This helped me a ton as well. My hands are naturally cold, and most workplaces tend to keep it cooler than I find comfortable.

Here's my submission to the "thing that solved my RSI but which is purely subjective and may or may not work for you" category:

I used to try to type with my arms/elbows floating -- not resting on anything. This seems to be fairly standard advice. For example, you can see it here: http://ergonomictrends.com/proper-ergonomic-typing-posture-a... I've had various doctors recommend the same thing.

But when I try that, the muscles in my shoulders/back get incredibly inflamed, and tension/pain tends to spread throughout my body, eventually to my hands/wrists.

Eventually I gave up on that, and now my elbows are splayed out and rest on the chair's arm pads. My hands rest on wrist pads, and my keyboard is split about 18" (using a Kinesis Freestyle 2). Basically, my hands/arms are nearly always at rest, and no energy is required to keep them suspended in the air. I also try to avoid "reaching" for the upper rows with my fingers, instead I move my entire arm forward to some extent to hit those keys (which is more a 'push' than a 'lift', because my arm pads have a bit of give in them).

I've had no problems since adopting this setup.

I’m convinced that the reason RSI is so common is that the standard advice for how to type and how to hold your body is actually making things worse

Same, but for me the cure was John Sarno. Unfortunately RSI seems to be one of those disorders that everyone cures differently (if at all!) and you just have to stumble around until you find a method that works for you.

I’ve got dozens of RSI stories here from many people:

https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes

Lots of people have tried many things.

Are you referring to the "Sarno method for psychosomatic symptomps" (e.g. https://www.morrisonhealth.com/sarno-method-psychosomatic-sy...)?

This is the first I've heard of such a therapy, it sounds fascinating.

Yeah he probably is. Sarno wrote a whole range of books, primarily about back pain (https://www.saxo.com/dk/healing-back-pain_john-e-sarno_paper...), but also dealing with RSI. If you read up on it, a great deal of people have said it has helped them with their RSI.

Anecdotally it's done nothing for my RSI, but it has helped me deal with a 7+ year "chronic" upper back pain, though it did take a bit of time to swallow the concept at first.

For me the best way to fight RSI was weight lifting exercises to strengthen my palms. That and a trackball.

I thought that too. Building muscles to protect and support ligaments to me sounds like a decent solution. I feel like people who are underweight are the ones that are most prone to suffer from RSI.

Well, be careful. I love trackballs, and have used them exclusively for 25+ years. But... “trackball thumb” is a thing. I had a physical therapist show me how to work out issues when I get them, but ultimately the healthiest thing for me to do is to switch between 3 different trackballs to change up the motions.

I have one with the ball at the top (logitech marble) so no problems there.

I use one of those at work, and a mouse at home. I like to think mixing up the motions helps, but honestly it's because I'm not nearly precise enough to game with a ball.

You can try one of the Kensingtons. The ball is quite large to allow precision moving.

https://www.amazon.com/Kensington-Expert-Wireless-Trackball-...

I've been using a SlimBlade for about 10 years now and really like it. Spinning the ball for the mousewheel was brilliant and the giant, centered ball gives you a lot of freedom in how to position your hand on it. They are also have nice quality builds, I've only just had to buy a replace recently after many years.

Same, I had debilitating RSI for years, to the point where I was using voice recognition and a foot mouse, but all symptoms went away once I started wearing hoodies to work. As soon as I use a computer with bare arms though it all comes right back.

Same for me.

Only a few minutes with bare arms and I get this snapping sensation in my forearms as I type. And if I push through, pain.

Doctor's wanted to do surgery. But I didn't have the problem prior to an injury that required me to use crutches, so I was hesitant to resort to surgery.

Keeping my arms covered has been a lower risk solution that's been working fine now for 6 years.

I got RSI when I worked in a cold room with my wrist exposed. I strongly believe that keeping everything warm helps.

I remember reading some guy's article where he said wearing fingerless gloves helped him with RSI because he was actually sitting right below the AC fan the whole time.

Probably this one: https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/11/18/rsi-solution/

I use a 250 watt heat lamp suspended about 3 feet above by keyboard. It warms my hands, the kbd, and the desk surface. Doing so for years, way more comfy.

Brilliant! I will try this. Never thought of that.. but that will help on days when my hands are a little colder than usual.

That's very interesting, your report and those in the comments mentioning warmth. I'd some years ago experienced RSI problems and rectified it with neoprene "wrist braces"; while they didn't provide a huge amount of support, just some mild compression, they were certainly warm.

In case this is helpful for someone else:

I had RSI for years as well, ended up changing careers away from tech for many years because of it. For an unrelated issue I started taking probiotics and gradually noticed the RSI had improved. It took a while to realize it was the probiotics doing it because I had generally been avoiding doing things that triggered the RSI. After I noticed I could type regularly again though, I've had a couple of instances where the RSI flared up again when I had stopped taking the probiotics for a week or two - that's when I finally realized that was likely the change that made the difference.

Looking back I had had the onset of significant chronic digestive issues a month or two before the RSI started and I know believe that was not a coincidence.

I used biking sleeves under my shirt.

https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1j2LQSFXXXXcCXXXXq6xXFXXXj/WES...

For me it’s Kinesis Advantage and 3M wrist braces. This way I can type and mouse all day, otherwise I get pain in couple hours. For laptop keyboard braces help, but in general I avoid truly prolonged typing on laptop.

The key is not to let pain develop, stop immediately and develop solution, otherwise you can get through the point of no return.

I wonder if the sleeves help your wrists slide more rather than your skin "sticking" in place against the desk/laptop and causing you to bend your wrists more to reach keys.

For my addition, why oh why, do people who are at the edge of RSI use laptop keyboards?

Yes, laptops are convenient. But not so convenient to risk losing your wrists.

How do the long sleeves help? Cushion?

Probably also warmth, increasing blood flow. Particularly important if you also have cold hands.

Rapid Reboot makes compression (peristaltic?) massaging boots and the like for athletes. Maybe something similar but heated, massaging sleeves, can be developed to help with keyboard RSI?

https://rapidreboot.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMImbn228fq5wIVjMVkC...

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