Repetitive strain injury

[Dorothy]

Yes, I have a brace and it is prescription, not otc. Not sue if I can knit well with it, but I will give it a try. I am not sure which move even caused it...I did not feel much pain, it suddenly got bad.

It is a slight turn upward of the right hand that is the likely culprit. It's a clockwise rotation that would make the wrist tilt back slightly. One of the best ways to prevent carpal tunnel for people that use a keyboard or mouse a lot is to make sure that the chair is high so that the elbow has less bend and the arm is in a straight line down to the fingers. It's when the wrist goes up and makes the canal smaller that usually the problem is created. It is also similar in the way that people play instruments. I've had to change the way I play the violin and teach people how to play the piano differently to heal and prevent such problems.

I suggest that you hold your knitting down further in your lap so that your arms and wrists can relax - but more important is that they will be in more of a straight line. Then you will find it easier to use the brace when knitting because you will be keeping your hands in the position necessary to prevent that kind of movement that makes the problem.

Make sure that your hands end up in as straight line with your lower arm always when doing repetitive movements with your crafts and with the computer. That's why a brace can help so much.

If you raise your chair at the computer so that your feet just touch the ground and you even have to come forward in your chair so that your arms are almost hanging - that could change everything for you.

It's all about ergonomics. It makes much more sense to prevent the movements that create the problem in the first place than try to fix it afterwards by any kind of treatment.

[raw-al]

I made a base for my computer screen (24" Apple imac) so that it is behind my desk and the actual screen starts at the table top.

One other thing that I always do is to use the keyboard keystroke combinations instead of the mouse. You see when the earth was still cooling there was no such thing as a mouse or icons for such common things as Open, save,file, new window, cut, copy, paste, etc.

If you notice, when you look at the pull down menus like File the first letter has a line under it. This means if you press the "alt" key and then for instance F, the File,menu pulls down. You look in there to see what you want to do such as open and you continue to press the ctrl key and add the O button. You'll notice the"O" has a line under it. That's what it means. ctrl O goves you open file. You don't have to pull the file, menu down just ctrl O.

If you watch a geek bangin at the keys, they know all the keystroke combinations and you can go into the guts of the computer and add all kinds of new ones. You can also get programs that allow a bunch more and each program has it's own. In fact you can do a lot of mouse free work. I only use it when all else fails. I've seen people do awesome things with the computer just with the KB no mouse.

alt a will save the file
alt z means go back one move
alt a means select all of a page
alt p means print
alt b means bold what you have selected
etc etc etc.

There is key strokes for most operations you want. Just pull down all the menus and look for the underlined letter and then try it and memorize it. Some require 3 keystrokes and they can get complicated, but if you are doing something repeatedly, learn the short way.

It's a life saver if your mouse dies or freezes or the computer starts acting cranky.... remember it wasn't breastfed.... LOL

[Suiren]

I am giving the castor oil a try right now

I have to stop typing for today, since this also hurts, but I am very slowly getting better and I appreciate all your advice!

[raw-al]

Here is one possibility. Looks quite interesting. I've read about it online and in a book by Doctor Jerry Tennant and it seems to be ligit. I plan to look at getting one from these people in early January.... http://avazzialife.com/Non-Prescription-Devices.html It is supposed to be good for injuries of any kind, helping with pain relief and repair of tissue and even able to keep you healthy by monitoring your electrical balance in various parts of the body. It essentially reenergizes your tissues so that blood flow is increased. They are a biofeedback device. Essentially they send an electrical current into the body and wait for a reply. Depending on the coherency of the reply (which is fairly quick) you can figure out how much stimulation is required with the device. It is pretty simple to use and a very good thing to have around the house as a modern day first aid kit. This is my impression as I have not tried it yet.

I started a thread here...

http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/hot-topics/energy-device-medicine/msg102071/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RawPaleoForum+%28Raw+Paleo+Forum%29#msg102071

[raw-al]

I am reading 'Earthing' which is essentially about walking barefoot on the ground or somehow electrically connecting yourself to the ground.

There are many ways both inexpensive and expensive to do this, but people generally report less pain, or pain going away, better sleep and recovery from a multitude of diseases.
http://www.earthing.com/

I highly recommend you try it. It works

There are lots of youtubes on it and websites.

Here is a number of ways to ground yourself; (In Europe they call it earthing yourself I believe)

1 best walk on bare slightly moist soil/sand/concrete with bare feet

2. Hook up a wire from the ground through a wire or all metal plumbing/pipes etc to a piece of conductive metal (copper steel iron aluminum etc) and put your hands/feet/whatever, while you are standing walking computing, sleeping, whatever

3. hook up a wire to the grounding part of a household plug and then somehow connect that to yourself as in the previous example.

4. Same as 3.  but use the household water pipes if they are grounded and metal all the way to ground.