Just wondering if any of you gamers and gaming addicts got yourself into a real-world trouble and acquired Tennis Elbow or Carpal Tunnel playing roguelikes?
In the past few months-and-months I probably put more than XXXX hours playing CDDA using numpad and repetitive typing might have finally caught up with me and will force me to quit for a while. Happened gradually, probably noticed 2 months ago, but still kept playing, writing it off to my IRL job.
Basically on right hand at the elbow area: painful to lift objects (like tea mug) or turn things by hand (like unscrewing lid on jam jar, using door handle). Which, according to Dr. Google is Tennis Elbow and requires serious R&R for a few months to undo the damage.
Any advice for faster recovery that worked for you, aside from tramadol, codeine, aspirin or cattail jelly?.. or playing with my left hand
I’ve developed telekinetic powers to offset my injuries of years of playing roguelikes, growing past my feeble flesh. Another time I found the exodii and managed to replace my meat suit with a steel one.
On all seriousness, CDDA has some mouse support and has support for automation, like fast traveling on the overmap, redo last tasks for crafting, pressing tab to skip through sections of your inventory, advanced inventory management, and more.
Just peruse the key bind menu and see what you can do to reduce your keypresses, if all else fails you can tinytask / ATBSWP things so you don’t do repetitive crap and destroy your tendons.
Try collagen supplements for your tendons and listen to your body if it’s painful, make sure to massage the muscles (not the tendons) in the area to reduce tightness.
Please do keep in mind that we are experienced with treating of infected bites, limbs smashed by hulks and mutagen misuse, but not really with real-real world injuries. Please go to a real doctor and do not take heroin against the pain and decreased focus/morale, even if you would do so ingame.
Your doctor might suggest wearing a splint, using vikeys, treating it with warmth or even surgery. Bonus points if you ask your doctor for reliable sources online so we can have tennis elbow ingame soon.
Vikeys are really great though. They are ergonomic and once you learned how to use them you will see how convenient they are. Even major sites like Youtube implement vikeys.
It’s not automating tasks in game, like crafting, that bother me too much… Those are minor inconveniences for, as far as keyboard use goes. It’s moving around the cities and clearing out everything in sight - hence over-use of keypad.
Collagen pills - yes! - that might have “+” Health to it.
Massage - also yes! [starts looking for ‘morale enhancement device’ (C) Vormithrax in bottomless backpack]
Please go to a real doctor and do not take heroin against the pain and decreased focus/morale
[Me looking ashamed, putting spoon and lighter down]
The pain in not that bad that I would consider doctor visit just yet. I’d rate it: |||\. , with some pink color.
As for Vi keys - not a big fan, even from Unix days. Plus I would still have to use right hand to type those in. I don’t think I have much choice but to quit roguelikes for a while. I’ll consider it a ‘sign’ from higher powers to dial back on gaming and try and do something IRL-useful for a change.
But if all else fails and I have to go back to CDDA - Vi keys are to be considered
Switching hands works a little bit, as does switching fingers, but the off hand tends to be weaker than the main one, so it quickly catches up to the (poor) state of the main one.
Cutting back on keyboard (not to mention mouse [drag-and-drop for hours at work in a shoddy program without key shortcuts is what started my issues]) usage is probably the best approach, and back off immediately when symptoms (re)appear.
In game, working smarter with more thinking and less mindless key pecking is probably useful. “How can I do this with the least number of key presses?” might be a good, constantly asked, question. More thinking also means fewer key presses per hour (or whatever unit of time you want to use). More thinking can also, potentially, lead to fewer dead characters, so there may be a positive side effect to that way of reducing the impact.
Ergonomics is a real issue with this kind of thing, I’m not going to try and relate the details because it’s too complicated for a short post, but look into adjusting your keyboard position, it can make a really dramatic difference.
I have trouble with carpal tunnel, not tennis elbow, which seriously cuts into my coding time. An ibuprofen before bed helps ward off inflammation, but stretches and time off only helped temporarily. It would just come right back again.
The thing that really helped was when I had a chat with a sports medicine doctor who suggested exercising the opposing muscle groups – muscles that get overdeveloped get shorter and tighter, and the underused ones get longer, and this can pull things out of balance. That’s why stretches help, but they’re only a short-term bandaid solution because the muscles return to their resting shape after a while and start compressing the nerves again. (Shaking my hand and letting it fall into a resting position revealed the problem, as my right handhand would naturally move into a curled-up bird-claw shape)
Instead I began exercising the extensor muscles in my fingers, and the opposing wrist/forearm muscles, the former with a rubber band around fingers or fingers/thumb, which adds resistance to opening the hand; the latter by placing my hands on a surface above and behind my head, lifting the weight of my arm with my hand/fingers in a sort of “pushup” exercise to build the strength of the opposite set of muscles.
All this actually helped a lot, and I’ve been coding more than I have in years. Whenever I feel a twinge I take a day or two off and do the exercises, and it goes away again, but now it goes away for weeks at a time instead of just a few days.
Ergonomics: yes, in the hind-sight it should have been better years ago. Because of narrow table, I’m forced to sit right between keyboard and mouse (so keyboard is on the left side of me, which makes it easy to type left handed, but straining for the right hand).
Exercises: also yes, ought to start those, as well as stretches; probably would have been good idea to start doing so years ago and get into the habit to stop for breaks during computer sessions every hour and do some tai-chi. Occasionally I go full-on “casino gambler”-style gaming and play for hours without breaks or food… just one more building, just one more city, just one more lab, just that Hulk…
Seems like I got some major self-rehab to do, and stop expecting it to go away by next week.
Thank you for all of your suggestions, comrade zombie hunters!
