Common Sense Tips to Help You Heal from RSI
Monday, December 3, 2007 19:43Recovering from RSI depends on more than just your workstation and how you work. It’s also essential to make sure your lifestyle is healthy. Even if you think you can live with the pain for now, think about 3, 5, or 10 years down the line– as we age, our bodies get weaker. It’s harder to heal and stay strong and fit. Injuries build up over time, and if you keep up doing the same things that cause you pain, you might not be able to work in a few years. Luckily, you can make some relatively simple changes to make sure you’re doing everything possible to stay healthy. Consider the following –
- Hobbies and Recreation - Don’t spend all your free time hunched over a computer, or a desk, or at the TV. Make sure you find hobbies that get you up and moving around. They can be artistic, athletic, or anything. I used to spend most of my time writing, drawing, and doing graphic design, but in the last few years, I’ve taken up poi spinning, photography, and even textile dyeing as ways to stay artistic and active.
- Aerobic Exercise – You might not think of it as fun, but getting enough exercise is important to help your body pump oxygen and healthy blood to all those places you’re having pain. It also boosts the immune system. You don’t have to go to a sweaty gym to work out -find a park and go hiking, or join a dance class. Even taking walks and doing yoga can help your body relax.
- Strength Building – If you’re injured, you have to be careful about lifting weights or doing other strength exercises. You should probably see your doctor before you start. But once you can do it without hurting yourself, toning your muscles can help your body prevent future injuries. As you age, it’s also important to build muscle, because it will help your skeletal structure stay strong and healthy, too.
- Diet and Nutrition – Sometimes it’s tricky to know what to eat. Diet plans seem to be fads that come and go and often contradict each other. But they do have one thing in common – they recommend that you avoid prepackaged foods and eat fresh, wholesome ones. That’s because many processed food products can actually cause your body to produce inflammation. There are chemicals that are commonly in a lot of food that can actually have very negative effects on your health. So, it’s best to eat fresh food, and a healthy balance and variety of different kinds of food. Your body needs certain vitamins and minerals to heal itself and stay healthy – so make sure you’re getting them.
- Relationships – The people you love can help you keep going through tough times– or they can drive you crazy. Managing the stress of helping your spouse, aging parents, or taking care of your kids can be a huge burden that can add to your body’s pain. It’s important to recognize how much you can handle-try to set boundaries for yourself, identify your priorities for balancing your work and personal life, and let your loved ones know what they can do to help you out when you’re in pain.
- Sleep Habits — Sleep is the time your body takes to heal itself. While you sleep, your body shuts down many of its regular processes, so it can devote itself to relaxing and healing muscles and tendons. Research shows that taking quick cat-naps during the day can help you stay alert and awake and avoid sickness and pain, and that getting enough sleep during the evening is essential to staying healthy.
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Clair says:
January 16th, 2008 at 5:21 am
I’d like to know more about your experiences with RSI. I seem to have some symptoms like tingling sensation in my hands and fingers. Also my hands feel painful when I wake up. I am taking up poi spinning too but I read somewhere that it might aggravate things but elsewhere it said that it helps. What’s the deal? I don’t really know what to think of it.
Amy says:
January 16th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Tingling in your hands or fingers is usually related to nerve impingements (pinching of the nerves). Might be caused by stress/overuse and inflammation that builds up in a certain area. Another common symptom is a swollen/stiff feeling, or numbness. For example, if your arms are falling asleep in the middle of the night, that is another sign of a nerve related issue.
This is a frequent symptom of the initial stages of carpal tunnel syndrome, but the problem could also be coming from somewhere else in your arm or shoulders. Or it could be caused by a specific activity. Without knowing you or what you do for a living it is hard to say. If you’re a construction worker handling heavy machinery and holding vibrating tools all day, that’s one problem; if you work at a desk job on a computer all day, that’s a different one, so it really depends.
Questions to think about are – what are you doing when you feel pain; what other symptoms are you having and where else in your arms are you having pain or tingling?
Poi is a lot of fun and is good at exercising the shoulder and getting more range of motion, but be careful…if it seems to exacerbate the problems, then cut back your practice. Everyone’s body reacts differently, and your injuries are different from other people’s. By all means, experiment with things and see how they affect you, but take it slow and carefully, and listen to your body.
All that said, if at all possible, you should see a doctor and they can help you diagnose the problem to find out what’s actually causing it. That’s really the most important step especially if you’re not really sure what’s going on. They will be able to prescribe a treatment that’s much more specific for you, hopefully.
In the meantime, you can ice the wrist or the other affected area that might be causing the problem when you get off work. If you’re a computer user, try wearing wrist braces and not typing at home. If you use vibrating tools for long periods of time (like in a woodshop or construction site), wear gloves that absorb the vibrations. If you’re having pain when you sleep think about what position you’re sleeping in and if that might be causing problems (for example, if you’re leaning on your side and on your arm, that could cut off circulation too!)
If you think it is wrist related, you might also go to a drugstore like Longs and get some Coban, which is an elasticky wrap you can put around the wrist. Don’t wrap it tightly, just loosely, and it sticks to itself and tightens slightly over time. It’s good at reducing inflammation and can reduce the pain too.
I also know someone who had some success wearing some snug warm gloves while she slept, to reduce hand and wrist pain and tingling. (I’ve never tried this).
Take care and hope you figure it out and heal quickly.
Clair says:
January 17th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
Thank you so much for the information. I’m thinking about going to the doctor soon. I am already looking up referrals from people I know. I have been wearing wrist braces every so often. At home, I hardly use the computer so it’s a good thing then.
I am considering wearing mittens or gloves to keep my hands warm enough. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts.
As for poi practice, last December I was bumming at home for two weeks and I hardly went online. I still did poi spinning, I’d do it for 30 minutes everyday and my hands and wrists hardly had any tingling or pains. Maybe now that I am on the computer more often things aren’t quite nice.
I am learning a new keyboard layout as well. I read that the Dvorak kinda evens the work of the left and right hands, compared to the QWERTY keyboard which places much work on the left hand.
I am not sure if having a pen tablet set up instead of keyboard would help me. I guess I should consider alternative data entry tools for the computer then.
Amy says:
January 21st, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Gloves for warmth are a great idea. You can try half-fingered gloves for typing too. I’ll make a post about it sometime and show off the ones I have:)
I have tried Dvorak layouts, and my impression is it doesn’t help much. You can get “fluent” fairly quickly–at one time I could touch type much more quickly in Dvorak than Qwerty. It is a good layout when you are doing a lot of text typing, but much harder than a qwerty layout to perform essential keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl X/Ctrl V for cut/paste. Also, visitors cannot readily use your keyboard set-up, which may or may not be important, depending what you do.
Good luck and let us know how it works for you.
Amy
Home Treatment for Repetitive Stress Injury » Carpal Tunnel Pain? — Get Tested for Food Allergies says:
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