Re: OT: Computer pain

On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 01:21:29 -0800, Jitze <couperus@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:03:11 -0500, tony cooper
<tony_cooper213@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

For the past few weeks I've been experiencing shoulder and neck pain
on my right side that has gone from moderate to severe*. Every day
has been a 2400 mg Ibuprofen day.

I've been working on a project of scanning old slides and processing
them in Photoshop...a couple of thousand slides reduced to "only" 564
images and then putting them on disks for my son and daughter.

It finally occurred to me that my position and posture during those
hours at the computer might be causing my shoulder and neck problems.
I rearranged things to lower the surface where my trackball sits and
bought a new chair with arms. The result is that my forearm is now
level instead of angled up, and it rests on a chair arm.

The shoulder and neck pain went away in two days. Amazing that arm
position can make such a difference.

* "Severe" is a relative term when it comes to pain. I don't handle
pain well. I get grouchy and snappish, whine a great deal, and feel
sorry for myself. My wife, however, could probably have a root canal
sans anesthetic and deal with it. I think it goes back to childbirth.
She popped out our firstborn on the gurney on the way to the delivery
room before being medicated or snipped. After that, anything else is
endurable.

Your story pretty well parallels mine from a coupla years ago
when I had a particularly heavy bout of computing to do over
a 3 month preiod or so.

I see you use a trackball, in which case the following may
not apply but I found it invaluable as a mouse user. It consists
of a gel-filled wrist pad for my mousing wrist to rest on. It is
a squishy[1] bladder about 6 inches wide (left-to-right) and maybe
2 inches deep (front-to-back) and about an inch high - but the
top is slightly concave to accommodate the heel of my palm while
the rest of my palm and fingers extend over the mouse.

[1]Squishy is not quite the right word for it, but it's the
closest I can think of right now. It has a tendency to return
to its original shape slowly if deformed, unlike e.g. foam rubber
which is more bouncy.

Jitze

I found that just changing the default left click on the mouse
to right click did wonders for wrist strain. The whole hand can shift
over to click instead of stretching the index finger.


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: OT: Computer pain
    ... and it rests on a chair arm. ... "Severe" is a relative term when it comes to pain. ... the rest of my palm and fingers extend over the mouse. ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: Computer pain
    ... Most days I don't take anything and put up with the pain, but I avoid walking around too much. ... hours at the computer might be causing my shoulder and neck problems. ... and it rests on a chair arm. ... "Severe" is a relative term when it comes to pain. ...
    (alt.usage.english)
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  • Re: Circulatory problem, maybe blood clot in arm
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  • Re: news on my arm
    ... Michael Richardson wrote: ... I take pain killers for the pain that accompanies the problem but I have to watch how much of that I do. ... Sometimes when I play pool my arm feels like if you had run a gas powered weed eater all day, arm is numb and aching to the point I have to drive with one hand home. ... I'm a positive person and have had to overcome worse things in life and this is just one of those things Iwas lucky in that I had a doctor who recognized from my injury and fanily histrionics that surgury was not going to help the problem and probably would only serve to aggrevate an already 'unnerving' problem. ...
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