This Blog

Concise digestable and practical tips for beating RSI. Topics include ergonomics, exercises, breaks, gadgets, hardware, and software. Pretty much every tip is based on my own personal experience.

Me

I’ve been an intensive computer user for about 15 years now and have been battling with RSI for about half of that time. It built up slowly probably because I spent a few years cooped up in a home studio not knowing anything about ergonomics and not having any breaks routine working late into the night. A few years later I ended up doing data entry with some badly designed software which was the straw that broke my back. Sometimes I get the upper hand on this thing and sometimes it gets the better of me.

My condition

A lot of people seem to think that Repetitive Strain Injury (aka the more relevant but lesser known title: Occupational Overuse Syndrome) causes some tingling in the fingers. There are a lot of variations on how RSI affects each individual. At its worse, I sometimes find myself in such agony that I’d like to cut my biceps off. Some tingling in the fingers almost sounds nice in comparison (although I’m sure it isn’t nice at all). Although my main complaint has been sore biceps, over the last few years it has spread throughout my whole body, my neck, my wrists, even my legs hurt these days.

My Methods

No one thing works. It’s a self-medicating combination of everything you can think of. When I’m being successful in beating RSI, it’s when I can manage to do at least a half an hour of exercise in the morning, and some in the afternoon, a strict break routine, good ergonomics, posture, the right hardware/software setup and Reasonable work hours. I find you really have to keep up the daily routine to keeping beating RSI.

I’m hoping this blog will keep me reminded of what works and I’m also hoping to pick up some new advice along the way.