Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 15:54:29 -0500
Subject: Re: Ouch

<< 3) any tips, suggestions, or anecdotes you have relating to preventing or 
   treating injuries - from your experience or that of your students; and >>

I've been playing guitar for about 17 years, and computing for about 7.  I do
some pretty hard computing at times (6-10 hrs/day), and have always been able
to play guitar or mandolin afterwards, until.... I got a tech support job
which had me keyboarding full-time 8 hr./day under stressful conditions.
 Within 2 months I had bad tendinitis in my wrists which eventually spread to
my elbows and shoulders.  At first, the pain was in my left wrist, which made
me suspect guitar playing, but when it spread to my other wrist and arms, I
began looking at the keyboarding.  The solutions were, in order:

1) Get an adjustable keyboard tray.  I keep it as low as possible and angle
it so that the F-keys are lower than the space bar.  I don't touch anything
except the keys (.ie no wrist pads) and really work to keep my wrists
straight.  I move my whole arm instead of reaching for keys.

2) I found a great keyboard.  Surprisingly, it's a Compaq, but it's one that
has a really soft bottoming out motion along with a very light touch.  Other
keyboards will eventually begin to hurt my fingers, but this particular board
doesn't.  Unfortunately, I don't think you can readily get them.  I lucked
into another one in a used parts bin and snatched it up.  Lacking the Compaq,
I like top-of-the-line Focus keyboards (Key Pro).  I haven't had a chance to
spend time with an IBM board but plan to.  

3) I stretch a lot- every 5-10 minutes, I stop and stretch.

4) I quit my tech support job and got a much, much less stressful desktop
publishing job.  Pretty soon, I'm going even farther and am moving back to
the ranch!

After three months of (1) and (2),  my condition improved to the point where
I could play 10-30 minutes a night, or longer on weekends- if I could cut
down on keyboarding during the day.  Right now, I really don't keyboard that
much and avoid it whenever possible.  I do have to watch the mouse, though.
 I am now able to play just about as much as I want, although I can't do 4
hr. every night AND hard keyboarding.

It is most defintitely the keyboarding causing the problem, too.  Over the
holidays, I didn't touch the computer except for checking e-mail, and I
played guitar, mandolin, and bass virtually non-stop for 8 days with
absolutely no problem.  Monday, I sat down at the keyboard and within 1 hr
was feeling stiff.  A short stretching period cleared that up, although I
took it pretty easy for the rest of the day.

Medical treatment included a "Doc in a Box" telling me to quit playing guitar
and prescribing anti-inflammation drugs.  I took the drugs for a week and
quit, and started working on stretching and walking with swinging arms during
my breaks which I took religiously every 2 hrs.  I sometimes take 1 aspirin
as a preventative on days I know are going to be hard.  Mostly, I changed the
problem and kept a positive mental attitude.  Instead of playing guitar, I
worked on ear-training and singing (being very weak in both!).

Overall, I think the biggest factors contributing to my recovery were
improving the environmental conditions (reducing stress, finding the right
keyboard, and stretching), not the drugs and medical "advice", although the
later was useful for diagnosing tendinitis and not carpal tunnel or something
else.

I found Pascarelli's Repetitive Stress Injury book very, very useful.

Questions?!

Bryan