Repetitive Stress Injury

A little about my repetitive strain injury.
I am a young fit man that has worked in many physical jobs in my 30 odd years. One of these jobs was a professional massage therapist for close to 5 years, I now run a lawn care and gardening business and have also done my fair share of factory work to sustain my addiction to traveling. It was during one of my backpacking trips that I had my first run in with a repetitive stress injury (RSI). I was starting to get into making web sites and I was using my laptop up to 6 hours a day. I had terrible posture and my work station was set up poorly (yes as a massage therapist I should have know better) anyway I just kept working through the pain trying to finish my website. This is when the real trouble begain. I had nearly 2 weeks where I hardly slept because of the pain. It took over a month to get my body back in shape. Since then I am very aware of any early warning signs of RSI and have invested a lot of my time looking into the best ways to prevent and treat repetitive strain injuries.

So what is a repetitive strain injury?
RSI is basically damage to the muscles and tendons and eventually the nerves that run trought them (this is what causes the tingling sensation so common with RSI sufferers). The most common areas that are effected are the hands, neck, shoulders, arms, forearms, upper back, elbows, lower back and legs. RSI can come from both your work environment as well as from every day activities such as driving or ironing. It is caused by repetitive movements especially when you are using forceful hand movements such as gripping or twisting. Some other causes are stress and poor posture and ergonomics (the way your work station is set up).

Some of the confusion about RSI stems form the fact that it is actually NOT a specific disease. It is an umbrella term that includes many other specific and usually interrelated conditions. RSI also be known as repetitive stress injury, repetitive strain injury, occupational overuse syndrome (OOS) cumulative trauma disorder (CTD) work related upper limb disorder (WRULD) and non-specific arm pain. You might have heard of some of the actual conditions that fall under the RSI umbella. Here are some of them carpal tunnel syndrome, cubital tunnel syndrome, DeQuervain's syndrome, stenosing tenosynovitis, tendonitis, tenosynovitis, thoracic outlet syndrome, trigger fingeror thumb, tennis elbow.

Recognizing the symptoms of RSI is very important because it is alot easier to prevent a repetitive strain injury or treat it in its early stages than when it gets to a chronic level. Some of the symptoms include:

* Tightness, pain, burning, stiffness or swelling in the hands and wrists
* Coldness, numbness or tingling in the hands and fingers
* Loss of strength or coordination in the hands
* Pain that wakes you up at night
* A strong impulse to massage your hands, wrists or elbows
* Stiffness and pain in the limbs and hands.
* Pain in the upper back, shoulders or neck
* Hypersensitivity (Highly or excessively sensitive
* The symptoms may fade or improve when the activity or task is stopped.

If you are experiencing any of the above symptoms or believe you have a repetitive stress injury, it is very important for you to make an appointment with a physician, preferably one that has experience with dealing with RSI.