Plaidophile

There hasn't been a "Dear fluffy" in quite some time, but Chris just writes in with this:

Hello

Googling for leads on what's been plaguing me for the past six months brought me to your site, specifically this post:

http://beesbuzz.biz/blog/e/2006/06/16-tendinosis.php

I've been diagnosed with everything from tendinitis to deQuervain's to nerve damage in my neck with no luck so I still hunt for answers. Since your wrist posts seem to end after that one I'm very curious: did anything in that post work for you? Have you had any improvements or progress? Living with this, I sincerely hope you have

Regards
Chris

My response (which was nothing new to him, of course):

I've found that the best way of dealing with it is to not type so much, and to not take any sort of pain killers. Aspirin slows down the healing process, and Acetaminophen only masks the pain so I keep on working when I shouldn't. Right now at work I have an understanding with everyone that they should contact my manager if they need any sort of assistance or if there's anything pressing or whatever, and I spend most of my time talking to others about how they can solve their problems rather than me solving everything for them (which is a nice change of pace anyway). I'll typically spend a few months working at normal capacity then have a month or so of respite.

In the past I've also found massage therapy to be helpful, though I haven't seen my therapist in several months.

Ergonomics and fancy keyboards don't really do a fat lot of good. I think fancy keyboards actually cause more problems than they solve because they encourage me to type more and faster.

The other important thing to do is to take frequent typing breaks, with the aid of software, and when it tells you to take a typing break, don't try to ignore it or work around it, like what I'm doing right now (heh).