It's not carpal tunnel syndrome!

What Hacker News says

1. charbuffJul 2023
   I came her to comment on the quote from Ousterhout that, "It's not clear to me that you can ever "recover" from RSI; all you can do is stabilize at your current level of disability." I hope he got a chance to fully recover.

   I too had debilitating RSI, leading to needing wrist braces and typing with a pencil lodged in my left hand and a few achy fingers on my right.

   The book "It's Not Carpal Tunnel Syndrome!: RSI Theory and Therapy for Computer Professionals" [1] really opened my eyes on how to treat it.

   I didn't start weight training, but did spend at least 20 minutes a day on trigger point therapy between my shoulder blades and elbow crease. That helped the most.

   Then a vertical mouse, split keyboard, ergonomically placed chair, and correct table height helped prevent the recurrence.

   [1] https://www.amazon.com/Its-Carpal-Tunnel-Syndrome-Profession...

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2. mike_hJan 2021
   Elbow plus those two fingers implicates ulnar nerve, which passes from your lower neck (C8 and T1 vertebrae), through your clavicle and behind your elbow, into pinky and ring finger. If it gets entrapped by tight tissue anywhere on the way down (look up “thoracic outlet syndrome” for example), it can cause issues below, e.g. in elbow and those two fingers. For the neck and dizziness I forget how things work, e.g. if it means the the problem is rooted in your neck / spine area or if the neck symptoms could also be rooted lower further along the nerve. It could all be due to mobility problems along the same nerve, or if you’ve been hunching at a computer for a while, there could be additional issues in the neck with other nerves or circulation.

   This is the kind of thing physical therapists and chiropractors work on, but at least when I went through it a decade ago, it was really hard to find one who could troubleshoot the problem and reason about the body vs. going by a lookup table of symptoms and approved treatments.

   The things that helped me were tissue-loosening massage in the neck, shoulder, and upper rib area. It finally went away one day when the therapist loosened my top rib enough to stop impinging on the nerve. Just to give you an example of how counterintuitive it can be.

   As a general cheat sheet, be thinking about places nerves could get impinged from vertebrae through wrist. Tight muscles, tissue locking you into certain postures, vertebral misalignment.

   I bet there’s more info on reddit and places like that now, but one book that used to be good for modeling the whole system was called “It’s not carpal tunnel syndrome”. Also look up trigger point therapy. During pandemic you may be more on your own so be aware of self-massage tools like Theracane. Posture work may also help, and walking / general cardio fitness.

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3. raidicyJan 2021
   I have not read the article but I wanted to comment on your comment. I too suffer from RSI in my hands and also am not able to be a vocalist anymore. I've been suffering from this for three-plus years now and I just wanted to let you know that you're not alone. I bought this book 'it's not carpal tunnel syndrome' and some of the exercises have been helping. Take care.
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4. emodendroketNov 2016
   I went to an occupational therapist and she gave me a program of exercises and as long as I do them I can keep my RSI in check. I definitely recommend occupational therapy if you think you are developing RSI. Of course you should also make basic ergonomic improvements like getting your keyboard at the right height (unless you have a keyboard tray it probably isn't); those are helpful too.

   e: Also the Sarno book this guy recommends has always struck me as pseudo-scientific nonsense. I like Pascarelli and Quilter's Repetitive Strain Injury and Damany's It's Not Carpal Tunnel Syndrome!

   e2: Also if your first impulse is to go buy a wrist brace that is completely wrong.

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5. thenomadDec 2014
   Have you read "It's Not Carpal Tunnel Syndrome"?

   Even if it is Carpal Tunnel in your case, "It's Not..." is a superb book on RSIs and RSI-like conditions: well worth picking up.

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6. simplermindDec 2013
   Right there with you on the keyboard shopping; it's an expensive potential mistake to make.

   I'm reading a very helpful book (It's Not Carpal Tunnel Syndrome) that is showing me the root causes of my RSIs, and the keyboard is only part of what for me is a pretty ugly picture that's developed over several years. If you go to the author's blog - rsirescue.blogspot.com - and look on that page for "Our Theory in a Nutshell" you can get a quick overview and see what I mean.

   I realize reading a book won't provide an immediate solution for your problem, but since I've been trying to sort through the keyboard issue myself and only stumbled across the book (which has so far been extremely helpful) I felt I should mention it. The book helped me realize a better keyboard will address some of my symptoms but not all of them and not all of my problem.

   If you've just started having RSI symptoms maybe the right keyboard would provide some quick relief and you can use the "Not Carpal Tunnel" information to keep it all in check. I have spent too much time and money chasing after solutions I hoped would be a silver bullet, only to find that they were either harmful or only partially helpful. RSI relief is turning out to be a puzzle with many pieces.

   All that being said, I stumbled across this page because I searched for the same thing you were looking for. The authors of the book provided a resource list that included a link to a site that did rentals. Now it's just a linkfarm :( I found a couple of other results that led to sites with rental programs, but they were only local. Would love to find a rental but if that doesn't happen within the next few days I'll pick one and buy where there's a good return policy.

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