Your
fingers are tingling. Your neck is cramping. Your wrists
are aching.
You've been doing it for three hours straight,
and you didn't take the proper precautions.
Your body is screaming for
a break to stretch and relax,  but
instead you continue to type and click and scroll.
You must finish what you started.
You think the discomfort
will fade with a goodnight's rest.
But those pins and needles in your hands
may be the beginning of a very serious condition known as Repetitive Strain
Injury (RSI), which, if untreated, can leave its victims unable to carry
a book or even grip a coffee mug.
"One afternoon in late June of 1995, while
typing, with my usual unconscious horror of a maniacal style akin to a
jackhammer, the extensor muscles of my left forearm (the ones on top of
the forearm) bit me very sharply," said Eric Barkley, who programmed computers
for 13 years. "The same thing happened in the right forearm."
He said an "alarm bell" went off in the
back of his mind, but he ignored it because of all the deadlines he had
to meet.
Over the course of the next ten months,
the pain grew.
"The tingling turned into electricity coursing
up and down my arms," Barkley said. "I literally lost my grip as my forearms
became incredibly weak, to the point of not being able to do my own laundry,
drive my car or even write a check."
Barkley said he eventually couldn't straighten
his arm, which caused him to become anxious and depressed.
"Dark foreboding thoughts of having to
live the rest of my life crippled, in pain and unable to grasp, literally,
the bare essentials of life were becoming omnipresent," he said." How much
longer can I keep a roof over my head? Should I start planning to move
in with my brother 1,200 miles away? And then what, just sit around?"
|
Then he lost the ability to use his thumbs.
Finally, Barkley sought help.
RSI is common among, but not limited to,
computer users. Anyone who uses their hands and wrists repetitively is
vulnerable.
From meatpackers to musicians to ice cream
scoopers, all can develop RSI. But each may have a different type of repetative
strain injury. RSI is not a diagnosis of a disease, but a blanket term
describing many symptoms related to the overuse of a particular muscle
group. For this reason, many conditions stand under the RSI umbrella, such
as carpal tunnel syndrome, ulnar nerve entrapment,
deQuervain's syndrome, thoracic outlet syndrome, tennis elbow and tendonitis.
The specific diagnosis depends on the specific body part abused.
However all the disorders have one common
factor: constant trauma over a period of time. RSI is the leading cause
of workplace injury with 685,000 reported cases in 1999, according to the
U.S. Department of Labor.
Could you be the next one?
|
