@OzzieGooen Any improvements so far?

.

Have you tried a Kinesis Advantage 2 and vertical mouse? Those totally fixed my RSI, although I still can't use regular mouse and keyboards for more than several hours without a flair up. There's also the Kinesis 360 now.

Also these things rock: https://www.amazon.com/JIN-BD-Auto-Start-Strengthener-Gyroscopic/dp/B094GXVT4C/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=1JZPCQXEMSSYA&keywords=gyro%2Bball&qid=1694187060&sprefix=gryo%2Bball%2Caps%2C161&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&th=1

Amazon.com: JIN BD Wrist Trainer/ Strengthener Ball Auto-Start Gyroscopic Forearm Exerciser Gyro Ball for Strengthen Arms, Fingers, Wrist Bones and Muscles : Sports & Outdoors

Amazon.com: JIN BD Wrist Trainer/ Strengthener Ball Auto-Start Gyroscopic Forearm Exerciser Gyro Ball for Strengthen Arms, Fingers, Wrist Bones and Muscles : Sports & Outdoors

Thanks for making this market! The post has given me a bunch of inspiration on things to try.

Also strong endorsement for weightlifting - conditional on skipping certain triggering movements. For example, I can't do lateral raises or barbell curls/rows without making it worse.

I forget, do you type Dvorak? I think Dvorak is not shown to improve typing speed but is shown to reduce RSI.

A bunch of my fellow aikido practitioners started having RSI symptoms during the pandemic lockdowns, when we couldn't come to the dojo. Aikido includes a lot of wrist locks, so we were all getting a ton of wrist flexibility and strength training without realizing it. You could try aikido (I think the antagonistic context helps you push yourself), or just do the stretches at home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvA_HMHI7Jc — no idea how these compare with physical therapy.

(Commenting with these because Dvorak and aikido are not separate betting options :)

@NoahTye I use a modified version of Colemak-dh now.

Thanks for the tips! Will look into the akido stretches.

Added 200 Mana for liquidity.

My bet stems from frequently hearing YouTuber CPG Grey say that the absolute tiniest amount of compound movement weightlifting made his RSI clear up within a few months.

Seems there was at least one Reader of this post who was instantly cured. Would that fall under the 'sarno' type of help? I guess this is less likely to help since you already tried that, but the post is still pretty good. It also kind of builds on the idea.

@Tassilo Wups, that was a bit too many shares though.

@Tassilo Yep, I'd consider that "sarno" style help.

Have you ever tried climbing/bouldering regularly? I’ve had rsi in my wrists and PT 2x/week (supination/pronation/extension /flexion/etc. with 12lb dumbells) isn’t enough, I also have to climb regularly.

@ian I can definitely try! I'm nervous because my wrists are sensitive/weak, and climbing does put a lot of stain on them - but it seems worth trying at least.

I tried one short session 2 weeks ago and enjoyed it.

What is "regularly" here? 2-3x per week?

@OzzieGooen Yeah regularly is 2x normally , sometimes 3x a week. It will strengthen your wrists, which should help! The more blood in those areas the better

@ian Good to know, will put on my list of things to try!

You mentioned back/shoulder workouts, what about arm workouts?

Do you get tendonitis, too? Or only nerve pain?

@zQ4Z82W I do simple exercises with dumbells.

I don't believe I was diagnosed with tendonitis specifically, but inflammation seems to have been a major issue. I've been recommended anti-inflammation meds.

My muscles definitely feel tight/sore.

So I have zero medical expertise, and I'm sure you've heard a lot of worthless N=1 stories by this point, but I'll give you my story anyway: I've had intermittent issues with RSI -- mostly ulnar pain in my elbows and tendonitis in my forearms -- but I'm mostly pain-free nowadays. Besides the obvious interventions, like using an ergonomic setup, not holding a smartphone for long periods of time, etc., two things that helped me a lot were:

1. Tennis elbow straps. These helped a lot with pain reduction in my forearms. I found wearing them for long periods of time could actually cause more pain or pain in other parts of my arms, so I only use them when I have flare-ups and typically wear them for maybe 30-60 minutes at a time. Example:

2. Doxycycline. I'm still not 100% convinced this isn't just a placebo effect, but: I discovered this by accident when a dermatologist prescribed me doxycycline for acne. I'd been dealing with RSI for almost a year, no interventions seemed to help, and then about a month after starting doxycycline the pain was almost completely gone. I thought maybe it was coincidence, but I've since replicated the effect -- there have been a couple other times in my life where I had similar RSI pain for months, got a prescription for doxycycline, and my pain went away after 4-6 weeks. Almost every doctor I've mentioned this to thought I was crazy, but in the last few years there has been research suggesting that doxycycline can help with tendon and cartilage repair.

Obviously antibiotics can have serious side effects, so it's not an ideal solution, but I found doxycycline effective, while standard short-term anti-inflammatories like NSAIDS did nothing. Also, maybe the doxycycline isn't actually doing anything and I'm just playing tricks on myself? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A relevant market I just created:

@zQ4Z82W Huh, that's interesting, thanks! WIll look into Doxycycline.