
Ask HN: Devs, what do you do to prevent/treat RSI? - gchamonlive
Lately I have been having a strange sensation in my right arm. I am planning on seeing an orthopaedist for a possible diagnosis, but I am really afraid of RSI. What have you people had, what do you do to prevent RSI and for those who developed this condition, what do you do to tread&#x2F;mitigate its effects?
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Mirioron
The name pretty much says it all: the problem comes from putting too much
stress on that one part of the body. If your wrist (or some other part of the
body) regularly hurts after an activity then you should:

1\. Speak to your doctor. Listen to them over anyone else. If that isn't
available, then you can:

2\. Ease off on the activity. Do it less. This gives your body some time to
heal.

3\. Change your environment so that the activity puts less stress on your
wrist. Eg if your mouse hand's wrist hurts due to using the mouse then you can
lower you sensitivity by a lot (4x). This will force you to use your entire
arm to move the mouse around instead of the wrist and will make it easier on
the wrist. You could also get a vertical mouse or change keybinds around. If
your keyboard hand hurts then getting a mouse with lots of programmable
buttons can be helpful. Changing where your mouse and keyboard are in relation
to where you sit can help (move them closer, further, higher, lower). The idea
is to just change it so that other parts of the body take some of the stress.

4\. Once you've healed enough, you should start exercising that part of the
body slowly to make it stronger. Stretches at first and move on from there.

Step 3 is the easiest way to notice a big difference. I went from my mouse
hand's wrist hurting within a few hours to having no issues even after an
entire day by just lowering my mouse sensitivity.

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gchamonlive
Thanks for the reply! Very interesting suggestions, I am going to try them.

I believe there is something to do with the way I use my thumb. I will try to
change which thumb I use to hit space bar. Will require some getting used to,
though...

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gshdg
Make sure your workstation is set up with both keyboard/mouse and monitor at
the eight heights for your particular body.

