PSA: Be Good To Your Hands
I thought I would take a moment to write a post about the importance – as video game enthusiasts – of making sure you protect your hands from repetitive stress injury.
For myself, usage is a double-whammy: I’m a software developer and a video game player. That means on a good day I will have spent around nine hours at the office working and then some hours of gaming when I get home in the evening (unless I have other activities lined up). Depending on the game I use either K+M or a controller. Despite this I had no problems for many years.
My mistake was back in May 2017 when work got busy with longer hours devoted to an insane project schedule combined with higher-than-normal video game time playing high-intensity games with friends. My hands started hurting, but I just powered through. I thought they were getting enough rest in between because they only started hurting if I played long sessions but otherwise had no problem at work. Still, I tried to limit my game time. However when my hands started feeling better I’d ramp up my gaming again thinking I was “over the hump”. In truth they’d only stopped hurting due to less activity – but hadn’t started healing yet. So I kept trapping myself in a downward spiral.
Finally around the end of November, the pain started to show up while doing my job at work. In the past two months it got progressively worse even after seeing an orthopedic doctor and starting PT because even though I gave up my normal video game time, the damage was bad enough that mousing was now the major contributing factor to my overuse. Typing is way better, but simply correcting my workstation with an ergonomic setup was no longer enough. My right hand can’t take much more than a few minutes of continuous mouse use now. My left hand starts hurting for any task that requires a lot of heavy gripping or use of my thumb.
As of now, I’m on a major computer work restriction. Fortunately my employers are good about this kind of thing. It’ll probably take most of 2018 to get back to normal, possibly longer.
If You Have Pain Starting… Stop It Now
If you are having pains in your hands that get worse after long play sessions, you’re already in danger of creating a chronic problem. If caught early enough, resting from that activity for 6-10 weeks might be all you need. The longer you ignore the problem and try to push through it, the longer it will take to recover.
We tend to dismiss hand pain because it doesn’t hurt as much (at first) as larger muscle/tendon injuries. But if you strain your shoulder playing tennis, what happens to it if you keep playing tennis every day? When a pro athlete is out of the game for a year due to injury, their coach doesn’t address the problem by making them practice every day with the injured body part. The first step is no activity with the injured part for a period of time until it starts responding positively to small amounts of use. After that a plan is carefully followed to start slowly strengthening it back up again.
I don’t have carpal tunnel syndrome (confirmed by nerve testing), thank goodness. CTS is a very specific type of overuse injury caused by swelling of the tendons that run through the middle of the wrist. My injury comes from using my hands so much that the tendons in my palms and fingers have been slowly breaking down. They will heal, but tendons take a LONG time. It turns out that it can take as long as 3 months just to set the stage for new collagen in the tissue to start anchoring itself properly, so lack of pain after a week or two of rest is a major false flag to thinking you’re “over it”. And then it will take many months of stretching, PT and conscious effort to slowly introduce back the activities I’m used to doing.
Be Proactive
If you game at a PC, it’s really worth your while to get ergonomic equipment. There are some good choices for gamers if you hunt around online. There’s even a Kickstarter for an ergonomic gaming keyboard if you want something more top-end.
If you play for hours whether on a PC or a console, set a timer on your phone to have a 5-minute stretch break every 30 minutes to an hour. There are lots of good stretches listed here. And there’s a video here from Dr. Levi Harrison who treats a lot of gamers at his practice.
Massaging your forearms is also a big help. All of those finger movements work via attachments to your elbow. You’d be surprised how tight your forearms get. Tightness can produce trigger points, little knots of muscle that only hurt directly when pressed and refer their other pain signals down into your hands. Working out the tightness can help reduce hand discomfort.
Most importantly, don’t ignore warning signs. Gaming should be pain free. If you start to notice discomfort, scale back or drop gaming for a week or two. If the discomfort returns immediately following your break, take more time off.
The body is amazing and will bounce back from pretty horrendous abuse, but slow-motion trauma is a real bitch to crawl back from if you let it go on too long. You only have one set of hands. Keep them in good shape so you don’t have to give up doing things you love!
Had the same problem few years ago, but only with my right hand (mouse one). I work as a 3D/BIM designer, so it’s regular 40h per week. There were more people with this kind of problem, so my company bought us a table football to play at work, but the main solution was simple and cheap - vertical mouse. There is still no research (I think) about that kind of mouse on long term usage thou, but for now - my hand stopped to hurt. Also, my wife won’t allow me to play more than 4h per week, so it may be a part of solution :D
Thanks for sharing and good luck with getting back to health!
Thanks for the kind words. :) I’ve tried vertical mice. Unfortunately they are primarily used for addressing problems with the wrist (that can eventually lead to carpal tunnel syndrome). My symptoms flare up mostly when gripping, so the best alternative I’ve found so far is a pluggable USB touchpad. But even that has its limits.
Thanks for sharing this with us and the good advices. Will definitly try some of them, even if I’m lucky to have no problems with this. I wish you all the best and get well soon! 💐
Great PSA, very nice write-up about it too! Thank you!
Wow thank you for writing this. This is one of those dangers I never think about. I hope you recover well and thank you again for taking the time to warn us!
And while we’re at it, let’s not forget back problems that arise from sitting in front of a computer all day at work, then gaming for hours afterward. Obviously this gets worse as you get older, or if you have a history of back issues in your family (as I do). And then there’s the eye strain cause by hours and hours looking at a screen… =(
The one thing I don’t like about all ergonomic keyboards I’ve seen is that they put the “6” on the left side, but the qwerty touch-typing system I learned uses your right index finger to press the six.
Thank you for writing this up. My wife has some carpal tunnel, and uses a wrist guard (not 100% of the time, though). My wrists have been fine (so far) but I’ve had mouse pads that elevate my wrist, etc., for my of my typing/mousing life. For me it’s my back and eyes that suffer. I also use a controller when I can so I can stand while I play.
There’s a little tool called WorkRave that reminds you at configurable intervals to stand up, give your back/eyes/wrist a break…both “mini-breaks” and longer 5-minute breaks (both configurable).
Thanks again, and get well soon!
Thanks, Trent! Your point about back pain is well taken. I’ve been fortunate in this regard due to regular exercise and a really good ergo chair at work for 15+ years. But I still deal with situational back pain as a result of getting older.
Also great find on the WorkRave app! I installed it on my home PC. It’s a lot like RSIGuard, which is what my employer uses, except free. Woot! :D
Great! Glad I could help a little. :)
Personally, I’d configure it for 10 minutes, 2 hours, and off (mini-break, break, and end-of-day).
After reading your comment about the placement of the “6” key, I checked and saw that it’s on the left side of the Kickstarter Dygma keyboard. :)
I’m terrible at remembering to take breaks despite trying, I zone out a lot. Will definitely be downloading WorkRave, thanks for the tip. :D
Thanks for the reminder and sharing your experiences, I know I get really weak hands/arms from health issues and will sometimes push through til I can’t physically hold a mouse anymore. Been trying to get better with it and treat my body with care, watching videos instead or massaging and taking breaks when I start going downhill. Will check out some of those stretches, see if they help. Best of luck with your own body, hope things improve sooner than later!
Ish I haven’t really bothered with this cause I’ve felt like I’m young and can handle it and its fine or whatever but I should make sure its in the back of my mind
thanks
This is absolutely incredible and very important, and it’s something I need to be aware of, too.
I went to school for 3D animation, and since I was very young nearly all of my hobbies involve being on a computer, so I was using a keyboard and mouse for the vast majority of me being awake. Most of the professors at school advocated to use a tablet and pen, because it’s less intensive on your wrists (though, of course, as all digital artists know it can still fuck your arms up). It never caught on for me, though. For me, what was weird was not necessarily the volume of work I was doing, but how stressed I was. If I was stressed, my wrists and right under my inner elbow would ache so bad.
That’s eased off, but the result is I have VERY weak wrists. They don’t hurt often, but they DO creak/crunch a lot. Arthritis runs in my family, and I’m currently looking for a sport I can do to keep me active and to keep my body strong - I’m thinking fencing.
This is one of the benefits of having very ‘slow’ tastes for games, though - it’s very light on my hands.
BigBlue, I’m glad your workplace has been accomodating, and I hope you can continue to progress. I think it’s so smart of you to lay out your plan this way, and very kind of you to share it with us.
Thanks for sharing your experience with us and the well needed reminder. CT is my big nightmare as like you I both work as a dev AND game on my free time. I’m always trying to keep the back situation in control because it’s already annoying enough to get older but thanks for all those stretching exercises links for the wrists/hands too.
I’m glad your workplace is accommodating with your recovery needs and I hope your situation gets better. Best of luck and take lots of care <3
I too want to thank you for sharing this with us, I will definitely make sure to take more regular breaks from sitting in front of the PC.
I wish you a good recovery and it’s very nice to hear that your workplace is helping you on your way to said recovery.
I’m a little late with my reply (trying to catch up on reading posts since I’ve been mostly away for a bit), but I really appreciate the heads-up. I’ve occasionally had bouts where the tendons on the back of my right hand would get strained from too much mouse clicking (I think Diablo II was the first culprit there) and would have to take a break from the computer for days, but that was nowhere near what you’re going through. Here’s hoping for a speedy (well, as speedy as possible) recovery.
Hey Kap, thanks for the good wishes. I’m actually doing very well. While I had the best of intentions with this post, it turns out that my problem was not being caused by damage to my tendons. I’m back to gaming again. I’ll do an update soon! :)
I’m back to gaming again. I’ll do an update soon! :)
Sweet! I’m looking forward to it. :)
This comment was deleted about 6 years ago.
Thank you for sharing this with us and best of luck with your recovery!
Ever considered trying to use voice recognition to help you (not for gaming, just for more general typing)? I watched a quite interesting talk about someone in a similar situation a while back if interested.
I have had issues with my right wrist in the past myself but luckily so far the problem was always easy solvable by using a mouse, that it not even ergonomic, just doesn’t plain suck to hold (damn workplaces that buy the cheapest, crappiest shit…).
Thanks and that’s an interesting video! Unfortunately there are aspects of his setup that don’t translate well to my job or workspace.