Also, I love the style of this blog with the chat-replies from friends.
Unless you know the doctor personally, or are rich enough to see high-class private practitioners who will actually pay attention to you because of your money and/or status, that would be a gargantuan waste of time. Needless to say, I too am speaking from personal experience.
That would indeed come under people who aren't "The vast majority of doctors".
They will usually just give you the referral you want. They may ask you to do some wrist exercises first, but if you are persistent, it will happen.
Think of primary care as talking to first level support at the call center. If you already know your problem needs a specialist, lead the conversation in that direction.
You can hurt yourself doing anything. Nobody says to consult a doctor before doing anything else, but there's lots of fear mongering around exercise. Going from sitting at a desk all day to doing some weightless squats, curling tiny weights, and bench pressing a bar isn't going to ruin your body. It's only risky if you're physically disabled and already know it.
I even see people saying you should see a doctor before you start walking or jogging. No. Start slow, and if it majorly hurts your bones and joints, then talk to a doctor because you may have something wrong. If you just feel a burn in your muscles after a while and an ache in your muscles the next day, you're fine. You're getting stronger.
The recommendation was not "see a doctor before starting an exercise routine if you are sedentary".
It was "If you are going to try to use an intense exercise pattern as a treatment for an RSI, consult a doctor first".
> Start slow, and if it majorly hurts your bones and joints, then talk to a doctor because you may have something wrong.
If you have an RSI, you already have something wrong; that's your starting point. And a lot of common RSIs affecting the risk and elbow can have a lot of impact on ability to safely do lots of common exercises (especially with free weights) at weights way (like, literally, an order of magnitude or more) below what would even be useful from a strength perspective. And, yeah, the right focused exercises can help, and if you've got a decent doctor, they (or, more likely, the physical therapist they refer you to), will actually provide you both appropriate exercises for your particular RSI and also appropriate guidelines on how to avoid exacerbating it with other exercise.
Are you not physically disabled in some way though if you have RSI?
More like, do your homework on whatever it that's wrong with you. Often, a doctor's input is very helpful, but that too comes with limitations and caveats.
RSI and similar mean there's something specific that needs fixing. PTs can dramatically speed up that process; trying to solve it on your own can result in more damage simply because you're not fixing the problem.
I'd agree that exercise is all well and good. But you should also make sure you're fixing the right problem.
The doctors just prescribed the PT and the PTs had me doing basic stretches that ChatGPT would done a better job with
Now I have back pain, wrist pain, and tennis elbow.
Obviously don't do things clearly aggravating your symptoms, but there is no magic diagnostic that would make a doctor tell you you can't exercise because of your wrists.
I have very little wrist pain any more.
I also have a kinesis pro keyboard and a MX master mouse. They both add to the improvement.
variation of this - my wife half my weight does her Aikido exercises on my wrists when the wrists start to remind about themselves.
Supposedly this exercise helps in all sorts of problems that arise in a sedentary lifestyle (hands, arms, back etc).
Now, the only problem with doing it here is that most trees here are pines and strong branches start 20m above the ground...
I’ve found that when you’re going from (weak, sedentary) => (strong, active) it can sometimes be difficult to discern what activities are good or bad for your pain. Sometimes you need to work through pain to find relief and strength on the other side, but sometimes working through pain just leads to more pain. The boundaries aren’t always clear at the time.
But slowly building up the hang time and then moving to 1 pull-up then to 2 and slowly over months to 5 and then 10 seems to keep it happy.
Be careful and slow but consistent and results should be good.
( See your doctor of physio for advice )
I find it extremely helpful to take a mid-workday walk, ~20 minutes, usually after lunch. My brain turns off to digest anyway, so I lose little useful work time. Adopting the walk pretty much solved my issue.
I speculate that my issues are blood-flow related - I’ve always had cold hands/feet, suggesting suboptimal circulation. All the prolonged sitting then starves the muscles in my wrists of the oxygen needed to keep typing. Roughly in line with this study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16640514/
Obviously, there are many possible root causes for RSI conditions. But a midday walk is a nice thing regardless, and may be worth a try.
You don't necessarily have to do that. I'm adding voice recognition into the game I'm working on right now, for example. It helps that it's a turn-based strategy game to begin with, though.
And there are players that manage to play games with limited or no mobility in their hands at all, with the right accessible controllers.
I don't think I'm doing anything too crazy with it either, so it's a little worrying, since it's happened pretty much every time I've played it lately.
Very cool! I've also found that it's helpful when the game supports different controllers too. I absolutely cannot play games with keyboard & mouse but plugging in an Xbox controller to the PC is completely fine. I'm sure people out there have the opposite experience as me, too.
My game will definitely have controller support also (most of it does now, a few screens are a little spotty I'm planning to fix in the next month or two, and I don't yet have multiple controller support, that may have to wait until later). But it's also fully playable with just clicking a mouse as well.
There was a book I can't recall the name of, in which one of the characters (a human) is stranded on an alien planet. He agrees to a certain type of relationship with his alien benefactor, but doesn't understand the cultural implications of what he's agreeing to. His fingers are lengthened through a medical procedure, so long that he can't hold anything, can't work, can't ever exist on his own again – he exists now only as a thing of beauty, a token for the alien to show off. He spends his days in what I picture as a courtyard in a roman villa, to be shown off to guests. This confers social status on his owner because of the resources it takes to keep a helpless sapient being fed, clothed, and happy. (The last one is debatable.) It is seen as one of the most intimate types of relationships in this culture. I think about this a lot.
that, or just improved blood flow allowing repairs and trapped shit to be taken away.
One thing I thought was interesting is he said that ortho doctors don't really think ergo keyboards help. I use a kinesis advantage 360 where I can (I still prefer a regular keyboard) I don't see much in the way beyond help with shoulder pain. I've had surgery to fix my RSI/ tunnel nerve inflammation. Anyways where I'm going with this is I do think exercise is a big help.
Of course, every person and diagnosis is different.
> Strongly recommend.
It fixes most modern afflictions of sedentary < 60 years old people, very very strongly recommended indeed
Under physical therapy supervision, my >60-year old mother is exercising fairly vigorously (for her age) and has been seeing great improvements in her overall health and strength, so don't let age be a factor and get professional help if needed.
Strengthening is definitely a huge part of it if not most .. more often than not.
A few other things helped, if you have them use your benefits to verify with a physiotherapist or professional.
Wrist support:
M-brace makes an excellent and minimally invasive strap. Good to west while sleeping if you twist it while sleeping. There’s an older version of this which was an angled bracket which works in many positions. Helps relieve from fatigue or not get fatigued as easily.
https://m-brace.com/produit/wrist-support-132/
Laptops are generally awful ergonomics especially if you aren’t as active as may need to be. Invest in an ergonomic keyboards, ergomice, vertical mice, trackpads. Variety is the best ergonomics. Minimize or stop using laptop keyboards. I use Logitech k860, Microsoft ErgoSculpt keyboard, kinesis freestyle widest separation at times, even though they are not mechanical. Slim keys are actually pretty good.
If you have a standing desk use it more often to change up the angles and use different muscles.
Strengthening:
- A gyroball works well. Builds up the core muscles.
https://www.amazon.com/NSD-Essential-Strengthener-Exerciser-...
- Wrist curls, not too much weight, get advice. Don’t overdo it.
- Finger strengthening using hand grips
- If you can find some hand massage or scraping tools and learn how tonier them they can alleviate a lot of stiffness in hands and forearms.
If you already have an injury, you want to build up supporting muscles first so you don't end up making it worse, and start slow.