Nothing quite like noticing an interesting thread half a week after it
started.

Note: I am not a physician.

>>>>> "tw" == Timothy Wilson <wilson at visi.com> writes:

tw> Hi everyone, Over the last week or so I've been experiencing some
tw> very mild numbness and tingling in my left index finger. Also, it
tw> occasionally twitches very slightly. Is this an early sign of RSI?

Yup.  It's not "carpal tunnel syndrome", however, since the nerve that
controls your pinkie and (part of?) ring finger doesn't go through the
carpal tunnel in your wrist.  Those fingers are controlled by the
ulnar nerve, aka the "funny bone" nerve.

tw> Is it time to shell out 300 clams on that Kinesis keyboard?
tw> (http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/)

Perhaps.  I've noticed several other people who have mentioned that
"ergo" keyboards are really expensive.  'Tis true, however ...

... I've been dealing with RSI for 5 years now.  It started out as
ulnar nerve problems: tingling progressing to numbness (!) in both
pinkies, loss of grip strength.  My Kinesis keyboard has helped deal
with that problem.  Are they expensive?  Yup.  Are they expensive
compared to *not* being able to *work*?  No way.

Several other people here have mentioned that Keyboard X has helped
solve their problems...

... but special keyboards aren't the only part of the solution.
Several other people have mentioned setting up the entire work space
correctly: monitor height, desk height, chair, etc.  A funky keyboard
won't help of those other things are dorked-up.

YMMV, but I and several college buddies & colleagues who've had RSI
problems have found that taking frequent breaks is very important.  My
wife almost always forgets to take breaks, and she regrets it at the
end of a long work day mousing & typing.  Many RSI problems seem to be
related, to some degree, with circulation problems.  Here's what I do,
YMMV:

1. Take a lot of breaks, dammit!  Set an egg timer.  Use "xwrits",
http://www.lcdf.org/xwrits/.  Do whatever it takes to get your ass out
of your chair on a regular basis.  I'm recovering from tendinitis
right now; I've had "xwrits" force me to take breaks every *20*
minutes.  When I'm healthy, it's every 55 minutes.

2. When you take a break, get up.  Move around.  Do not sit.  You
don't need to go jogging.  The things I've found most useful to do
are:

	a. Windmill my arms in both directions.  The longer I take
	between doing this, the more my shoulders creak & pop when I
	do it.

	b. Shoulder shrugs, rotating in both directions.  I'd do these
	as part of choir warmups, and they work well to help relax
	shoulder & upper back muscles at work, too.

	c. Refill my water/coffee/soda/whever beverage.

	d. Occasionally try to reach my toes to stretch my lower back.

	e. Take long lunch breaks, compensating by starting a bit
	earlier or working later.  A single 8-9 hour work sprint is
	more likely to cause injury.

3. Know when to stop working for the day.

This is *very* important.  Most RSI injuries are injuries to "soft
tissue": muscles, cartilage, tendons, nerves.  Soft tissue injuries
often take a long time to provoke 'cause they often can take a lot of
abuse.  But they get their revenge because they take much, much longer
to heal: it's common to take 4-5 times longer to heal than it took to
create the injury.

So, if you're feeling tingling, numbness, or pain, you gotta stop.
Right there.  Now.

If you continue to work, you're only going to make the injury worse.
Keep that 4-5X healing time factor in mind if you're thinking of
working through the pain: you're making a bargain with the devil....

4. Anti-inflammatory drugs can help, for *limited* periods of time.

Ibuprofen and sodium naproxin (spelling?), aka Advil and Alleve, can
help lessen the symptoms.  When taken on a regular basis, they can
reduce the swelling that can make soft tissue injuries even worse.

However, using these drugs is also a devil's bargain: they will
dork-up your liver if you take them for long periods of time.  Take
the label seriously.  Do *not* ignore the label, unless your doctor
tells you otherwise.  (Then, do **not** ignore your doctor.)

Most soft tissue injuries have only one sure-fire treatment: don't use
the affected tissues.  At all.  Nada.  Nothing.  Unfortunately, that
isn't an option most of the time.  I just started a new job.  I
couldn't take 3 weeks off to do nothing(*).  Heck, I don't get 3 weeks
of vacation per year.  Instead, I've been doing *no* hobby hacking.
I've been doing almost no personal email correspondence.  I'm taking a
huge number of breaks per day at work.  I've been leaving work, quite
early on some days, when my arms start to say, "You're done for the
day".

... My tendinitis recovery is now in month #4.  It sucks.  Recovery is
slow, waaaay to slow for impatient me.  But it's *better* than the
alternative.

I've burned a lot of today's keystroke quota on this message, but I
hope it helps.

-Scott

(*) Of course, my hobby is hacking code.  Taking a vacation to do
"nothing" means not hacking.  That is damn difficult to do.  "Nothing"
also means not doing other things that can aggravate the soft tissue
injury.  Don't put a new rain gutter on the house: that weekend hurt.
Don't recalk the bathtub: that evening hurt.  Don't knead bread dough
without a mixer: that evening hurt.  Don't take a new surround sound
amplifier out of its box: that evening hurt.  ... When it comes to a
bad RSI injury, doing "nothing" successfully is surprisingly difficult
to do.