RE: Carpal Tunnel Excuses

Subject: RE: Carpal Tunnel Excuses
From: mlist -at- safenet-inc -dot- com
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 08:56:34 -0400



written_by -at- juno -dot- com wondered:

> I do not understand something.
>
> Everyone I know uses a keyboard and mouse, hour after hour, day in and
> day out. They do not report any CTS problems. I am at my desk for many
> hours at a time, and I have not suffered any CTS problems.

1) Maybe you aren't prone to inflammation from over/incorrect use.
Some people just aren't. Murphy's law says that the people
who will end up in charge of fixing/managing a problem will be
the ones who don't have the problem nor any clue or sympathy
about it... like optometrists with natural perfect vision,
respiratory therpapists who have never had a cold and wouldn't
know what shortness of breath actually feels like... etc.

2) Maybe you naturally sit and hold yourself and your arms and your
wrists in the most advantageous positions. It's got nothing to
do with intelligence or knowledge; it's just one of those
bell curve things. Some do, some don't, most are in the middle.

3) Maybe you got lucky and your physical proportions are optimal
for what you are doing. Bell curve thing again. When I'm
warmed up, I can throw a ball farther than just about anybody
on this list. Some people look at my 50-year-old blob of a
body and wonder how I can do it. Big deal. Shape of limb and
muscle attachment. Bell curve thing.

4) Maybe 'everyone you know' actually spends more time
reading stuff onscreen than writing or click'n'dragging, etc.

I mentioned that I don't get the symptoms since I (mostly)
stopped eating wheat and corn, but I can still get tired
and achy in the hands, forearms and wrists if I'm doing an
unaccustomed marathon session of mouse-intensive stuff, or
some high-volume typing. The difference is that now I can
just stop and do something else for a while and the tiredness
or ache goes away. It's no longer cumulative.

I don't have any problem with clicking a mouse a few times
per minute or typing a few hundred words and then
stopping. In the old days, when my right wrist and forearm
were siezing up, that would have been different.
Even so, it can be tiring (with certain types of mouse) to
(say) highlight, drag and drop hundreds of small items from
one place to another in a short period of time, with no
break.

However, in those days when the problem was accumulating,
and my forearm would ache all night and and the outside
two fingers were constantly numb or tingly, I was seriously
worrying that the end of my TW career might be in sight,
long before the end of my need to work for a living. Even
so, I never let it interfere with my work. I didn't use
it as an excuse. I didn't even talk about it, except to
a doctor who sent me to a physio who had a wrist-brace
made up, which helped a bit. So, in one sense it affected
nobody but me, and in another sense... all your insurance
premiums went up just a tiny bit. :-)

Kevin

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