4 ms·

You should see a doctor- an orthopedic surgeon, not a PCP. PCP's don't know much in this area. You need a specialist. I'm curious what your symptoms are/were a

You should see a doctor- an orthopedic surgeon, not a PCP. PCP's don't know much in this area. You need a specialist. I'm curious what your symptoms are/were and how old you are. Tendonitis seems to usually have more to do with age than overuse per sé.

maxbond 4y ago
I saw a physical therapist, an orthopedic surgeon, etc. The surgeon didn't really examine me at all, and no one per say looked too close. I guess I've just never questioned their diagnosis of tendonitis. They were surprised it took me so long to recover, but I chalked it up to being the second time I got an RSI from typing (go figure) and that I probably kept reinjuring myself despite my best efforts (there certainly was some of that). I don't want to give specifics of my age publicly (if you'd like them please shoot me an email & I'll share then privately) but I'm on the younger side. I don't remember every symptom, but it hurt to type, my hands would fall asleep in the night if I wasn't very careful, I couldn't rotate my wrist comfortably, et cetera. My forearms were covered in adhesions. That was a few years ago. I don't do as much as I should to take care of my hands but things are a lot better. My hands tire easier than they ought to, they're very sensitive to being impinged upon (eg I can't use the hard plastic armrests of my chair without additional cushioning), and I can't type or especially use the mouse if it's cold without pain (so I don't, I turn the heat up and wait). I do have this memory of when I was a child, I regularly refused to hold anything when I first woke up. People would try to hand me things and I'd insist my hands felt weird and that I couldn't hold anything until they "warmed up" (figuratively). From what I remember it was similar to how my hands feel when I'm not using my armrests of when I've typed too much. I did have a terrible sleeping habit where I folded my arm under my neck like a chicken wing; maybe I did impinge a nerve in my shoulder or some other weird thing that's followed me around this whole time, I can't say for certain. That sleeping habit did start fucking me up more and more in my adulthood and I had to stop it, and I do get aches in my neck on that same side of I don't use a special pillow. I think I still have a remnant of it where I turn my head at night if my special pillow doesn't discourage it, and then I wake up with a sore neck. I got that special pillow after an incident where I somehow fucked up my back and my whole back was stiff and it was a struggle to move for a day or so. I don't know if any of that means anything, but there you go.
- gymbeaux 4y ago
  It doesn't sound like tendonitis to me. I'm not a doctor, but I've spent "tens of hours" researching in this area for my own sake. There are a lot of people out there who will tell you their "symptoms" got better when they switched to an ergonomic keyboard or a vertical mouse. My theory is that this "very gradual relief" is typically because those ergonomic peripherals subtly relieve nerve impingement going on in, say, the shoulder area. For example, a split keyboard that slopes up towards the middle achieves two things: 1) it pushes the shoulders more out of interior rotation (interior rotation causes Thoracic Outlet Syndrome) and 2) allows the forearms to not be in full pronation (though this is apparently less important as the related nerve impingement, Pronator Teres Syndrome, is linked to repeated pronation MOVEMENTS, not static pronation like you'd expect at a desk job). I remember reading a Medium article last Summer where the author (a SWE) talked about how switching to an ergonomic keyboard helped, but it took several months to recover from "RSI". To me, it sounds like he switched to an ergonomic, split keyboard, that VERY SLOWLY (over a period of months), relieved interior rotation of the shoulders. I believe that the author would have experienced more drastic relief, sooner, if he engaged in certain stretches and exercises aimed at correcting posture/strengthening posture muscles. I can't stress enough how important it is that you figure out WHICH RSI you are dealing with. There's A LOT of armchair/self diagnosis going on in places like /r/RSI where people A) don't know which RSI they have and just try things until something works and B) often assert they have "many" RSIs (e.g. tendonitis AND carpal tunnel syndrome AND cubital tunnel syndrome) - this is possible but unlikely. The problem with A is that the treatment for tendonitis is very different from the treatment for carpal/cubital tunnel syndromes, arthritis, radiculopathy, etc. Some on /r/RSI complain of "years of pain", were diagnosed with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, but are refusing (or are perhaps unable) to get Carpal Tunnel Release surgery, which I compare to wisdom teeth removal in both commonality and risk-reward. Finally, it seems to often take many months, or even years to get a proper diagnosis for "RSI". I recommend to people to do their own research, but do NOT rely on Google. OrthoBullets is a great website full of reliable information, especially in the area of diagnosis. It's meant for medical students, but still very readable by those with other backgrounds. NIH.gov has a lot of good info, like research papers/studies that shows things like: - There lacks strong evidence to support the notion that Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and using a computer have a causal relationship (correlation does not imply causation!) - Nerve conduction studies (often abbreviated as NCS and EMG) often return a normal/clean result, in spite of nerve impingement, and seem to be useless particularly in early cases (e.g. the nerve related symptoms started, say, a few months ago).

maxbond 4y ago

I saw a physical therapist, an orthopedic surgeon, etc. The surgeon didn't really examine me at all, and no one per say looked too close. I guess I've just never questioned their diagnosis of tendonitis. They were surprised it took me so long to recover, but I chalked it up to being the second time I got an RSI from typing (go figure) and that I probably kept reinjuring myself despite my best efforts (there certainly was some of that). I don't want to give specifics of my age publicly (if you'd like them please shoot me an email & I'll share then privately) but I'm on the younger side. I don't remember every symptom, but it hurt to type, my hands would fall asleep in the night if I wasn't very careful, I couldn't rotate my wrist comfortably, et cetera. My forearms were covered in adhesions. That was a few years ago. I don't do as much as I should to take care of my hands but things are a lot better. My hands tire easier than they ought to, they're very sensitive to being impinged upon (eg I can't use the hard plastic armrests of my chair without additional cushioning), and I can't type or especially use the mouse if it's cold without pain (so I don't, I turn the heat up and wait). I do have this memory of when I was a child, I regularly refused to hold anything when I first woke up. People would try to hand me things and I'd insist my hands felt weird and that I couldn't hold anything until they "warmed up" (figuratively). From what I remember it was similar to how my hands feel when I'm not using my armrests of when I've typed too much. I did have a terrible sleeping habit where I folded my arm under my neck like a chicken wing; maybe I did impinge a nerve in my shoulder or some other weird thing that's followed me around this whole time, I can't say for certain. That sleeping habit did start fucking me up more and more in my adulthood and I had to stop it, and I do get aches in my neck on that same side of I don't use a special pillow. I think I still have a remnant of it where I turn my head at night if my special pillow doesn't discourage it, and then I wake up with a sore neck. I got that special pillow after an incident where I somehow fucked up my back and my whole back was stiff and it was a struggle to move for a day or so. I don't know if any of that means anything, but there you go.

gymbeaux 4y ago
It doesn't sound like tendonitis to me. I'm not a doctor, but I've spent "tens of hours" researching in this area for my own sake. There are a lot of people out there who will tell you their "symptoms" got better when they switched to an ergonomic keyboard or a vertical mouse. My theory is that this "very gradual relief" is typically because those ergonomic peripherals subtly relieve nerve impingement going on in, say, the shoulder area. For example, a split keyboard that slopes up towards the middle achieves two things: 1) it pushes the shoulders more out of interior rotation (interior rotation causes Thoracic Outlet Syndrome) and 2) allows the forearms to not be in full pronation (though this is apparently less important as the related nerve impingement, Pronator Teres Syndrome, is linked to repeated pronation MOVEMENTS, not static pronation like you'd expect at a desk job). I remember reading a Medium article last Summer where the author (a SWE) talked about how switching to an ergonomic keyboard helped, but it took several months to recover from "RSI". To me, it sounds like he switched to an ergonomic, split keyboard, that VERY SLOWLY (over a period of months), relieved interior rotation of the shoulders. I believe that the author would have experienced more drastic relief, sooner, if he engaged in certain stretches and exercises aimed at correcting posture/strengthening posture muscles. I can't stress enough how important it is that you figure out WHICH RSI you are dealing with. There's A LOT of armchair/self diagnosis going on in places like /r/RSI where people A) don't know which RSI they have and just try things until something works and B) often assert they have "many" RSIs (e.g. tendonitis AND carpal tunnel syndrome AND cubital tunnel syndrome) - this is possible but unlikely. The problem with A is that the treatment for tendonitis is very different from the treatment for carpal/cubital tunnel syndromes, arthritis, radiculopathy, etc. Some on /r/RSI complain of "years of pain", were diagnosed with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, but are refusing (or are perhaps unable) to get Carpal Tunnel Release surgery, which I compare to wisdom teeth removal in both commonality and risk-reward. Finally, it seems to often take many months, or even years to get a proper diagnosis for "RSI". I recommend to people to do their own research, but do NOT rely on Google. OrthoBullets is a great website full of reliable information, especially in the area of diagnosis. It's meant for medical students, but still very readable by those with other backgrounds. NIH.gov has a lot of good info, like research papers/studies that shows things like: - There lacks strong evidence to support the notion that Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and using a computer have a causal relationship (correlation does not imply causation!) - Nerve conduction studies (often abbreviated as NCS and EMG) often return a normal/clean result, in spite of nerve impingement, and seem to be useless particularly in early cases (e.g. the nerve related symptoms started, say, a few months ago).