This guy's experiences are very similar to my own except that mine started in 2004 when I moved my own stuff from location A to location B, injuring my wrist in the process.
And that started a two-year saga during which several doctors told me to quit my job. Obviously, I beat RSI (mostly), and still code to this day. Observations:
1) Avoid long-term use of NSAIDs: initially they work but ultimately they make you feel crappy, possibly because they do something to your liver causing your liver enzymes to rise.
2) Ice, ice, baby: A key aspect of the cure for me was submerging my forearms in icewater for 10 minutes daily until they became mostly numb. They were inflamed, and cold (though above freezing) is about the only anti-inflammatory with no really negative side-effects
3) Lose the mouse, lose the laptop: I use a logitech trac-ball now (though that penclic pen looks tempting) and a really big screen. If I want to revisit my pain, all I need to do is use a mouse for a couple days or try to use a laptop to be productive. Strangely, touchscreen tablets are fine. This tends to run head-on into the insane focus on laptops at tech companies these days.
4) Yes, it does seem like part of the problem is in your head: I hate hate hated my job in 2004 but I needed the money. I changed that in 2006 and started knocking everything out of the park. That's right about the time the symptoms gradually went away. Also, I started hitting the gym again and lifting weights despite the pain (losing the 15 lbs I had gained during the experience). It seems like once there's been a long-term physical trauma, one's awareness gets rewired to focus on it despite it being mostly healed and then the only way out is to deny its existence to the best of one's abilities.
5) I've become acutely aware of how many extraneous mouse motions and button presses exist right now and that's a real sore point with me.
Stuff that didn't work: yoga, rolfing (felt nice though), acupuncture (except for one time I needed to get something out by a deadline and one needle blocked the pain long enough to get there), various alternative mice and keyboards (Dvorak touchstreams and Kinesis were awful for me), and supplements (though I suspect more Omega-3s might have helped had I known about them)
And that started a two-year saga during which several doctors told me to quit my job. Obviously, I beat RSI (mostly), and still code to this day. Observations:
1) Avoid long-term use of NSAIDs: initially they work but ultimately they make you feel crappy, possibly because they do something to your liver causing your liver enzymes to rise.
2) Ice, ice, baby: A key aspect of the cure for me was submerging my forearms in icewater for 10 minutes daily until they became mostly numb. They were inflamed, and cold (though above freezing) is about the only anti-inflammatory with no really negative side-effects
3) Lose the mouse, lose the laptop: I use a logitech trac-ball now (though that penclic pen looks tempting) and a really big screen. If I want to revisit my pain, all I need to do is use a mouse for a couple days or try to use a laptop to be productive. Strangely, touchscreen tablets are fine. This tends to run head-on into the insane focus on laptops at tech companies these days.
4) Yes, it does seem like part of the problem is in your head: I hate hate hated my job in 2004 but I needed the money. I changed that in 2006 and started knocking everything out of the park. That's right about the time the symptoms gradually went away. Also, I started hitting the gym again and lifting weights despite the pain (losing the 15 lbs I had gained during the experience). It seems like once there's been a long-term physical trauma, one's awareness gets rewired to focus on it despite it being mostly healed and then the only way out is to deny its existence to the best of one's abilities.
5) I've become acutely aware of how many extraneous mouse motions and button presses exist right now and that's a real sore point with me.
Stuff that didn't work: yoga, rolfing (felt nice though), acupuncture (except for one time I needed to get something out by a deadline and one needle blocked the pain long enough to get there), various alternative mice and keyboards (Dvorak touchstreams and Kinesis were awful for me), and supplements (though I suspect more Omega-3s might have helped had I known about them)