It’s Furious Balancing

I’m suffering from the onset of a carpal tunnel syndrome thing. A real-McCoy carpal tunnel syndrome thing with numbness in my thumbs and forefingers and the inability to hold a pen and write legibly. This is opposed to a faux carpal tunnel syndrome thing with soreness in my wrists from computer gaming too much and overusing the mouse. That’s what I thought CTS was — wrist soreness — but when I was looking up my symptoms on the innernets last night — as a good lil’ innernet addict should — I discovered that CTS is really indicated by a loss of sensation and/or pain in the thumbs and forefingers. That gave me pause, let me tell you. Serious pause. The “I’m causing nerve damage here” pause.

It’s from the knitting. I know it’s from the knitting because it’s in both hands. ¹

I’ve been a heavy computer user for years and years. Not only am I a Gamer Grrrl, I’m a secretary.² The vast majority of my job is word processing. Lots of word processing. I’m coming up on fourteen straight years as a probate and estate planning legal assistant, so I know my word processing, cats and kittens. Boy Howdy do I know my word processing.

I have a significant amount of hours of computer use at the office each workday and I have never, ever, for one second had a problem with my hands. There were a few long weekends when I gave myself “mouse elbow” from hours and hours of EverQuest II, but it wasn’t anything like this — nothing even close to this weird “pins and needles” feeling in my thumbs.

I have declared this a No Knitting Weekend. I’m wearing my wrist braces 24/7. I took ibuprofen all day, but that hasn’t really done much (and I can’t take it together with the extra-strength Vicodin that is my bulwark against My Other Pain I deal with all too often). I’m going to try some cold therapy (i.e., ice in a ziploc baggie) in a little bit.

No Knitting. I can, however, type and use a mouse (while wearing the braces) without much discomfort — not exceptionally well, mind you, but it’s certainly doable. My intention is to level up in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion so I can go and tackle the Shivering Isles expansion.

After the ice, though.

Yes, yes, in a perfect world I wouldn’t be on my computer at all. My alternatives? Reading and watching DVD’s. I’ll spend some time with those activities; I can only read so much without getting restless and watching a movie without yarn and needles in my hands makes me twitchy.³ I know there are millions of people out there who can sit in front of the television, slack-jawed and content, but I am not of that ilk. ⁴

It’s going to be a wicked cold weekend, anyway. It’s best to stay inside. There could be dire consequences otherwise.

 

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1. Anyone who does a lot of computer work will understand. Gaming (and word processing) isn’t necessarily about typing as it is about mouse use and, depending on how you roll, what you use for directional movement, i.e., keys vs. mouse. If I spend too much time gaming, I will get pain in my dominant (mouse) hand only — not both hands. I’ve never had pain from too much typing, where I use both hands equally. [↩]
2. Legal secretary by day: predatory stealth huntress by night! BWAhahahahaha. [↩]
3. Um, twitchier; sorry. [↩]
4. Now I need must repress the urge to re-write the lyrics to What Do the Simple Folk Do? [↩]

This entry was posted on Friday, January 18th, 2008 at 8:38 pm and is filed under Knitting, LOLCats, Pain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.