Hand pain and Workrave
547 words, 17 paragraphs, about 2 minutes to read (300 wpm).
First published on 2021-05-22.
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Yesterday, while using the computer, I felt pain in my fingers and wrist on my right hand.
I don't know how to describe the pain precisely in words. It's certainly not the kind of pain produced by stubbing my toe, bumping my boob on something, eating too-cold ice cream, biting my skin, or cutting my finger.
It's more of a dull stiffness and just an awareness that something bad is happening. It's like it's on another layer past the physical. It's _annoying._ I don't know how to describe it. Right now, it feels like it's _in_ my wrist, in the middle of my flesh, rather than at the edge of my skin.
I have no idea if this is Repetitive Strain Injury or not, but feel free to let me know your armchair diagnosis.
A very similar thing happened to me in winter last year. Judging by my past blog posts it was around early September. Back then I was doing some fairly intensive typing every day, incidentally using the Workman layout which I was quite early into using.
To deal with the hand pain then, I installed the program Workrave. Workrave prompts me to take breaks from the computer every few moments, to look away from the screen and stretch my hands.
I don't need to re-explain Workrave's features in detail here. Its website does a perfectly good job, so read that if you're interested.
My settings are:
- Micro-break for 30 seconds every 3 minutes. (I believe this is the default.)
- Rest break for 6 minutes every 30 minutes.
- No daily limit.
For the rest break, so far I've often chosen to rest for longer, by doing an IRL task that ends up taking longer, or settling down with a book and enjoying reading it. It's nice to not feel the need to be back at my computer as soon as possible.
When I used Workrave back in September, I believe it was useful to me. It helped me by enforcing breaks, and breaks are a good thing no matter what. I immediately felt somewhat of an improvement in the physical feeling of my hands on a moment-to-moment basis. I think it took my hands a week or two to feel completely fine, at which point I stopped using Workrave and didn't have any other hand problems until now.
I don't know how long my hands would have taken to feel better if I had not used Workrave. Maybe it would have been the same amount of time either way. Maybe it would have been much worse.
In the end, I can only guess at how much Workrave helped me. One thing's for sure: it certainly doesn't harm me. Even if it has no effects on my physical health, it definitely has positive effects on my mental health.
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Replies
Wing
could also be carpel tunnel syndrome maybe
but asking a doctor is probably a better idea lol
$25 for an appointment which won't deal with it any faster than what I'm doing now lol
expected response from the doctor: "hmm i dunno, take frequent breaks from the computer and stretch your hands"
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