RE: Carpal Tunnel Excuses

[mlist -at- safenet-inc -dot- com]

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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