Writing and Repetitive Strain Injury

I mentioned yesterday in my weekly goals post that one of the main reasons I didn’t get a lot done last week was due to a suspected repetitive strain injury that was causing a lot of discomfort.

As I was preparing to write this post, I figured I would look up the other times I’ve dealt with repetitive strain injury over the years as a writer.  I was surprised to realize it was more than just once or twice.  I remembering having developed wrist pain early in my writing career.  I hadn’t remembered the headaches I started getting from being on the computer a lot (though I did remember the vision changes).  I also hadn’t remembered the repetitive strain injury in 2008 after spray painting caused a flare-up, or the time in 2011 after a fall from my horse caused some issues in my left wrist.

It’s the left wrist I find most interesting since the issue last week was also on the left side.  Most of my repetitive strain injury has been on the right side, typically from mousing (or, apparently, spray painting).  I’ve had plenty of minor flare-ups over the years that weren’t worth mentioning.  A little heat, ibuprofen, and reminders to stretch and move periodically, and they would go away.

A couple weeks ago — I’m not sure exactly when, since I didn’t pay it a lot of attention at first — I started experiencing some discomfort in my left pinky finger that would worsen with a lot of typing.  Initially I assumed it was something about typing on my iPad’s keyboard, since working on the iPad is fairly new to me.  About a week ago, I realized it was more than that.  I was also getting numbness at times, and it seemed to be after periods of bending my left elbow a lot.  Sometimes it was even disrupting my ability to type, because my pinky finger couldn’t keep up with the rest of my fingers.

I felt sure it was nerve issues stemming from my elbow or shoulder, particularly since bending my elbow a lot seemed to make things worse, so I looked it up and apparently ulnar nerve entrapment is a common issue.  I tried icing my elbow without much improvement, so before bed one night I decided to try heat.  Initially the heat made my elbow feel stiff and swollen, but the next day the issue was noticeably better, and every day since has been a little better.

I’ve been trying to remain aware of anything I might be doing to irritate it further, making sure not to sit with my left elbow on the table (like I had to be careful of when I had similar issues in college), and trying as much as possible not to sleep with it bent too much.  And when I work at the computer, I try to remember to straighten that arm periodically and stretch it out.

Fortunately, it does seem to be improving.  It scared me a little when I was having trouble typing.  It’s a good reminder not to take even the simplest abilities (such as being able to use both hands and all ten fingers for typing) for granted.