Wrist braces ... I have no idea what I am doing?

[Binge]

I'm a complete noob when it comes to these things.  There are so many different styles of braces and I'm just not sure what works best for different situations.  Does anyone have a bit of wisdom when it comes to these contraptions?

[hoggy]

Eek.  Sounds bad.

Don't self medicate.

If you haven't seen a doctor - make an appointment.  This step is really important.

Okay, preaching over.

I've come across people who've been told to only wear them in bed, others told never to wear them in bed.  Never come across anyone told to wear them all the time - both in and out of bed.

Braces really helped me a first.  Not only did they relieve the symptoms, but it made it easier for me to ask for help, and provided a much need 'prop' at work that generated some much needed breathing space.

Do you have any plans longer term?  I'm guessing that you've spent a few years getting yourself to this point, and it's going to take work and time to get out of it.  Braces on their own aren't likely to get you back to being comfortable.  I'm still having issues a few years later (although they aren't as severe).

What symptoms do you have? 

A bit of thought can really help.  Take frequent breaks. If you spend hours gaming, then cut it right back.  If your mouse arm hurts more, then swap the mouse to the other arm - that sort of stuff.

The silver lining is that you've got a great excuse to get another keyboard and mouse.  Of course, what works for others might not work for you, so it might take several different products to find the right thing.  Once you've found it, you'll have some other items that you could swap in and out to mix up your day.

Wish you well.  Keep us posted.

[Binge]

I'm a troubled sort when it comes to repetitive motion.  I work data entry, write reviews, play guitar in a band, and I paint large pictures/portraits for fun.  Most professionals just kind of smile at me and tell me to take it easy or surgery might be the only way to relieve pain.  I do not take pain killers because I like to be aware of my limitations.  The pain in the wrists is just what gets tiring as everything I love to do makes use of my hands.  It's taken a toll on learning new instruments and taking time with music at the moment but I fear it might get worse.

Since my teens I've been taking joint supplements and keeping these key joints well exercised.  After taking on my data entry job not only have I really begun to appreciate these keyboards, but sadly I NEED them to keep from wincing while I work.  It's all bearable but I as well as the specialists I've seen wonder for how long until the wear takes its toll.

So to summarize with more use comes more pain/loss of free motion (stiffness backed by pain) in my wrists-fingers.  Sad that I might have to give up all the things that make life good.

[hoggy]

Would you consider trying a kinesis advantage?  The shape makes it hard to use it while wearing braces, but I found the effect was almost as good.  I think they have a 60 day return policy.

Don't be afraid of painkillers, a few hours of pain each day will just get you down.

I thought long and hard about turning in my programming career because of the discomfort.  Now I'm glad I kept at it.

How repetitive (as in predictable) is the data entry?  Could something like autohotkey or macroexpress help?  Trust me, even if they track your keypresses, they won't care how you get the job done.

Keep the music, you'll need something good in your life.

[Binge]

All of my entry is not very predictable at all.  Most of the simple forms which accompany data sheets are pre-written and just need forms filled out.  The saving grace here is that we have some periods of down-time.  Maybe trying out a Kinesis won't be such a bad idea if it saves me some of the grief.

So your experience with braces has been a positive one?  Maybe I'm over analyzing this because there are a number of options, but considering it might help relieve symptoms or allow my joints well needed rest what would I be looking for in a brace?

[hoggy]

All in all - I needed those braces and the difference they made was incredible.  I used to love wearing them.  I wore them too much - but I didn't really have many other options.  If you've seen specialists, I think you should consult about it first, especially if they haven't mentioned them.  That said, braces are cheaper than that sort of advice.

I tried a couple of different braces - I don't think there was much to chose from.  I think a cheap pair will do pretty much the same as an expensive pair.

What I would look for if I were to start up again -
Black (or dark) colour - they will get dirty - if you get the flesh/peach colour ones these will start to look horrid fast.
Removable metal inserts - so you can wash them.  It might actually be impossible to find ones without.

That's pretty much it.  The cheap pair the NHS gave me did the job quite well.  I just didn't like the way they looked.

If you can find some, biofreeze is fantastic!

As for the data entry, getting the number of keystrokes down will really help - you can use ahk for really small stuff and just chip away bit by bit.  If you type in addresses, you'd have an easy win with setting up hot strings to enter state names when you enter state codes (plus another character to stop it activating when you don't want it) - so ca; for California.  You might find that you type some words quite frequently.  Once you start to see the patterns, you'll see more and more of them. 

Check your posture at work, make sure the chair is at the right height that sort of thing.  Get someone to help you with this - even if they just take a picture of your profile while you are working.

[TotalChaos]

If u need braces then get them.  u  r in charge or ur life.  nobdy else.

U will prob hafta goto 12 to 20 docs before u get any real help.  That is just the way it is.

I could tell u a lot of horror stories

Anyway always get extra super large braces (they will still be way too tight to be healtjy).  Wear them as LOOSE AS U CAN.  They r just there 2 remind u 2 stay straight.  They can help u when lifting thngs too, the steel/akuminum bar is great for that.

Good luck.

[Binge]

appreciate all of the helpful remarks!

[laffindude]

I had some RSI issues in my wrist also. I followed the doctor's advice and stopped being around computers for around a year. I am sure that isn't an option for many people, but I did enjoy (and actually prefer) not working around computers. Most of us are issued 1 pair of MK I hands. You don't get a second pair, so do take care of them. Remember, you're only temporarily giving up stuff you love, so you can enjoy them more later on. I don't have any real advice, since I took the "easy" way out. I am not putting my wrist on the line for a job I didn't like

[TotalChaos]

Black (or dark) colour - they will get dirty - if you get the flesh/peach colour ones these will start to look horrid fast.

True!

But if you were on Bushcare they would ONLY give you peach/flesh colored ones.  They would be WAY to tight and they absolutely would not last more than 90 days because the veclro strips were way to short and narrow. Terrible workmanship.

But under Bushcare I could go to the medical supply store and pick out any braces I wanted and they would bill Medicaid for the price.   So that is what I used to do.   I would bebop on down to the Medical Supply Store and pick out some properly made braces and icepacks and Medicaid would pay for them.   But after Obamacare passed I got a letter in the mail saying Medicaid would no longer pay for "prosthetic devices" and that I could just go suck it.

I have tried many kinds of wrist braces and these are the best kinds I have found:
Futuro Reversible Splint Wrist Brace
L (Large)
model # 10765

I hafta buy them myself.  Sometimes certain stores have them but they are cheaper and easier to get online.  Google is your friend

They have a website at www.futuro.com but I don't know if I ever went there.  I bought my last batch at some other random medical website.  These last me around 2 years each time if I remember to remove them every time I wash my hands.  Maybe 1.5 years otherwise.  YMMV.

I think my last ones lasted 3 years but that is because for the whole last year they were held together with 10 pieces of Scotch(tm) Tape.  I would just replace the tape each month as it fell off.  haha  I looked ridiculous. 

One side always falls apart before the other side but it is different each time.  YMMV.

The one thing better than wrist braces is getting yourself a keyboard with springloaded keys.  Springs are natural shock absorbers.  The only kind of keyboard you need to worry about is one with Cherry Red switches (or an equivalent if anyone ever made an equivalent one).

Do not get Cherry Blue, Green, Clear, Black, Brown.  They are all antiergonomic and will just cause you pain and damage for nothing.  Those switches are not made for your benefit.  Those switches are made for giving Cherry and keyboard manufacturers free $$$$ for their benefit.

If you use 3 different computers then switch them ALL to Cherry Red switch keyboards and force yourself to type on them PROPERLY without smashing your fingers down into the bottom of the keyboard.  This will take you 3 days to 3 weeks but it will save you a lifetime of pain and surgeries and PAIN and nerve damage and PAIN and having your life ruined and PAIN and tendonitis and PAIN and RSI and PAIN and CRPS etc. etc. etc.  It will also help prevent those horrible gross scars that carpal tunnel surgeons inflict on people.

You don't want to end up like me.

[TotalChaos]

So your experience with braces has been a positive one?  Maybe I'm over analyzing this because there are a number of options, but considering it might help relieve symptoms or allow my joints well needed rest what would I be looking for in a brace?

One of the main reasons for wearing wrist braces is because millions of ppl bend their wrist at a 90 degree angle when they sleep.  Ppl don't realize they are doing this until it is too late and have horrible symptoms.  Furthermore some ppl do the 90 degree bend with their arm straight up in the air, or jammed against another body part and this greatly restricts or stops bloodflow.  Stopping your blood from flowing is a great way to mass murder millions of cells at once.


There are lots of important things besides wrist braces.

1. Are you sitting in a chair with armrests?

> Yes of course

Ok you have 3 choices:
A: Take off the armrests and put them in storage.
B: Take the whole chair, build a bonfire and throw it in.
C: Have your life ruined and die.

The choice is yours.

Arm rests are horribly antiergonomic.  In my case I was sitting in a chair that was really really good for my back.  It tricked me.  It had miraculously cured my backpain so I figured it was a great chair.

But the chair had HARD plastic armrests.  And my mouse arm typically (but not always) was resting on it at some point.  This causes friction.  Friction is bad. (Impacts from keypresses are bad too).

Nobody ever told me armrests were bad.  How was I supposed to know?

Another dead ez thing u can do is put your detachable keyboard down in ur lap.  This allows your wrists to sit in a much better posture.  You want your wrists to be as straight as possible.  When u use the keyboard down in ur lap there can be a nice straight line from your elbow thru your wrist.  This can delay or prevent the onset of Tendonitis all by itself.

> But it feels weird.

Who cares, u will get used to it.

> But everyone is staring at me.

Look man, do u want to die of pain or do u want to keep having an actual life?

[TotalChaos]

I'm a troubled sort when it comes to repetitive motion.  I work data entry, write reviews, play guitar in a band, and I paint large pictures/portraits for fun.

You sound a lot like me.  Kindof a workaholic.  Your brain runs fast and your hands are always struggling to keep up.  You take your hands for granted.  Until you lose them.  Then its too late

All my artist friends have hand probs.

Egadz, guitar playing?   That is real rough on the tendons.

I do not take pain killers because I like to be aware of my limitations.

I was the same way.  The problem is that painkillers really do suck.  They are all terribly dirty drugs with really bad side effects.

On the other hand they can be tremendously useful.

Take them or don't.  Either way u r screwed. 

  The pain in the wrists is just what gets tiring as everything I love to do makes use of my hands.  It's taken a toll on learning new instruments and taking time with music at the moment but I fear it might get worse.

I guarantee you it will get worse.  There is no "might".

You are getting older.  Your body can no longer fix the damage you have been causing by abusing it.

[TheGreatAmphibianPling]

You need to be realistic. Which means:

1. Resting your hands more: you have to give up some of the activities you are performing. Or you will probably end up crippled and, unless you are lucky, living in a box.

2. If you can't afford professional treatment at least read a couple of books and some info online. Eg

http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~cscott/rsi.html

3, Consider taking some Alexander technique lessons or at least getting a self help book

My advice is to be very cautious about braces: they often seem to do more harm than good.

[TheGreatAmphibianPling]

I'm a troubled sort when it comes to repetitive motion.  I work data entry, write reviews, play guitar in a band, and I paint large pictures/portraits for fun.

All my artist friends have hand probs.

Egadz, guitar playing?   

If you work at data entry and play guitar and paint and you are coming down with RSI, then you have to change either jobs or hobbies. It's a hard choice, because you'll probably end stuck with the job and losing the fun stuff, ***but it is better than being crippled.*** Avoiding choices like this is a good way to mess up your life.

Another reasonable link:

http://matt.might.net/articles/preventing-and-managing-rsi/

[Binge]

appreciate the info! Thank you.

[hoggy]

Binge, how are you getting on?

[Binge]

Binge, how are you getting on?

 In some free time researching I've come across a lot of information to match and reinforce the findings of other posters in this thread.  I've completely stopped playing guitar.  The hours of practice needed and constant need for a large range of motion was the most taxing of my hobbies. 

Changing typing habits, taking time to rest, and adjusting my hobbies have cut my fatigue and pain in half.  The concept of some accessory which can "fix" the pain has been thrown out.  Band-aids don't heal wounds.  I think the issue just needed to be formally addressed before hitting some sort of irreparable damage.  One thing a couple simple and well fitted wrist rests have done (courtesy of a great local pharmacy) has kept my joints in a neutral position while resting.

Without some common sense and experience that has been passed around here I doubt my condition would be improving at all.  Very thankful overall.

[mkawa]

sounds like tendonitis, and yep it does turn into (very difficult to repair) damage once you let it get too far, just like any other overuse injury. good job giving yourself some space and letting things heal.

[TotalChaos]

You need to be realistic. Which means:

1. Resting your hands more: you have to give up some of the activities you are performing. Or you will probably end up crippled and, unless you are lucky, living in a box.

Losing the use of 1 hand can put u living in a box.

Losing the use of both hands for an extended period results in starvation and death.  And believe me, it is NO FUN to be laying there starving in the dark with no electricity and no air conditioning.

My advice is to be very cautious about braces: they often seem to do more harm than good.

The problem with braces is ppl wear them way toooo tight.
Smashing your tendons into your bones is really bad for you.

But the wrist brace manufacturers try to make everyone wear super tight wrist braces.  Almost every single wrist brace sold at Walgreens and CVS for the last several years causes me horrible pain in a few minutes because they are all ridiculously tight.

The very largest wrist braces produced are just barely barely loose enough for me.  But I am a lean mean sex machine. 
I can't imagine how some huge guy like Kim Dotcom could ever wear a wrist brace without completely destroying his tendon sheath.

[TheGreatAmphibianPling]

Binge, how are you getting on?

 In some free time researching I've come across a lot of information to match and reinforce the findings of other posters in this thread.  I've completely stopped playing guitar.  The hours of practice needed and constant need for a large range of motion was the most taxing of my hobbies. 

Changing typing habits, taking time to rest, and adjusting my hobbies have cut my fatigue and pain in half.  The concept of some accessory which can "fix" the pain has been thrown out.  Band-aids don't heal wounds.  I think the issue just needed to be formally addressed before hitting some sort of irreparable damage.  One thing a couple simple and well fitted wrist rests have done (courtesy of a great local pharmacy) has kept my joints in a neutral position while resting.

Without some common sense and experience that has been passed around here I doubt my condition would be improving at all.  Very thankful overall.

You obvious great strength of will to accept unpleasant news so quickly and act decisively - good for you.

Some more comments:

- Walking many well help

- As someone already said, a chair with no armrests is probably a good idea (in the unlikely event your employer is willing to spring for an ergonomic chair, go for a Humanscale Freedom - its's the only really ergonomic chair that it is easy to adjust yourself)

- The most popular RSI books are Sarnow's "Mind Body Prescription" and Quillter's "The Repetitive Strain Injury Recovery Book"

- Make sure your wrists  are in neutral while you type:

http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/ahtutorials/typingposture.html

http://www.hp.com/ergo/forearms.html

[TotalChaos]

You obvious great strength of will to accept unpleasant news so quickly and act decisively - good for you.

I was impressed too.  He was in a bad situation and made a tough choice. ^5     Loads of ppl have a bad attitude and just say "screw u guyz I do what I want the way I always have".  And their condition just gets progressively worse.

- Walking many well help

+20

Also, sometimes you can get some handpain that is really just the muscles in your arm being too tense and stiff.   Usually you can feel the muscles in your forearm as hard little balls in this situtation.  If you get into that situation then you need to immediately have ur woman massage them for u to loosen then back up again and then figure out what it is you are doing that is making them get tensed up into hard balls.  Then stop doing that activity.  Relax and be happy

[Terrorsathan]

smoke weed

[TheGreatAmphibianPling]

Also, sometimes you can get some handpain that is really just the muscles in your arm being too tense and stiff.   Usually you can feel the muscles in your forearm as hard little balls in this situtation.  If you get into that situation then you need to immediately have ur woman massage them for u to loosen then back up again and then figure out what it is you are doing that is making them get tensed up into hard balls.  Then stop doing that activity.  Relax and be happy

You mean like "frozen peas"? Lots of little bumps? I've never seen this discussed in the medical literature on RSI, which says a lot about how damn LOOKING at sufferers doctors do.

If you're going to have some one massage the muscle, get it warm first btw! Heat pack, warm water, whatever. Much safer and less painful that way.

[TotalChaos]

Also, sometimes you can get some handpain that is really just the muscles in your arm being too tense and stiff.   Usually you can feel the muscles in your forearm as hard little balls in this situtation.  If you get into that situation then you need to immediately have ur woman massage them for u to loosen then back up again and then figure out what it is you are doing that is making them get tensed up into hard balls.  Then stop doing that activity.  Relax and be happy

You mean like "frozen peas"? Lots of little bumps? I've never seen this discussed in the medical literature on RSI, which says a lot about how damn LOOKING at sufferers doctors do.

If you're going to have some one massage the muscle, get it warm first btw! Heat pack, warm water, whatever. Much safer and less painful that way.

Good idea about warming the muscle.  Its been so long that I totally forgot about that.

My very 1st doc was a Chiropractor / Physical Therapist.  I call him a Cryopractor since his main advice was for me to use ice packs and it was the single most useful thing he taught me.  Its one of the main things that kept me alive to this point.

My brother would drag me into the car and make me go to him 2 or 3 times a week and each time the doc was shocked at how balled up and hard my finger muscles were each time even though he just massaged them all out a few days before.   He would use heating pads on me and massage the hell out of my arms with some type of special hot cream (I forgot what it was called, ah Sombra I think).  In my case the tensed up muscles were just a side effect of my nerves having gone hypersensitive.  But he told me that having your muscles be so hard and tensed up like that is not good and can cause a lot of problems for ppl.  In my particular case the muscles were not causing the problem but were being caused by the problem.

[hoggy]

Binge, how are you getting on?