I'm sorry if I'm not keeping up fast enough...

Sorry to hear it Torley - that sounds miserable. I thought you might be having a crisis of conscience - I'm glad it's something more mundane, but sorry it's something so painful and potentially damaging.

Yes, please listen to what people are saying. Stop typing now. Get the Lindens to buy you some really good voice recognition software.

Hope you feel better soon. Take care.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking with a good headset works very well for things like e-mail, blog posts, etc. and any machine that will run SL well should handle NaturallySpeaking just fine.

It's also pretty much the standard for voice to text, and it should let you keep up with e-mail, forum stuff etc. without using your hands at all.

Inworld is different, but if it's a matter of health, just stay out until you get better.

Good luck and best wishes.

Torley, definitely look into Dragon Naturally Speaking. I've trained mine for so long it's accurate to about 97-98%, almost 100% when I slow down and talk very purposefully to it.

Don't injure yourself Torley! you're doing the work of a whole team over there . You're doing good, but don't hesitate to take time off.

Torley,

I'm so sad to hear you having problems with RSI. A friend of mine had the same problem and could not type for longer than ten minutes until he had to take a break again. He switched over from mouse / standard keyboard to trackball and a Kinesis Ergo keyboard (those freaky things nobody believes you can actually type on). From then on, he was recovering very quickly. Maybe this would be an option for you, too.

http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/images/132.jpg

Best wishes! Get some rest and help your hands to recover!

*hugs*

Torley you do what ever you need to do to take care of you, cuz you are way to important to each of our second lives to ever loose. If that means taking a break, know this - we all as a comunity and as indivduals love and care about our Torley and we all be here to welcome you back with open arms

Aw, watermelonmuffin! I'm so sorry to hear.

Please, do take care of yourself and heal as best you're able.

I've got minor (thus far) RSI myself, Torley, so I sympathise.

I personally can't stand voice recognition, but I think it's because I tend to be very emotive when I'm speaking, which confuses the software.

I've heard good things about the SafeType keyboards, but they just look too strange for me to try.

There are some things you can do to help, just in terms of typing and mousing habbits, but I'm sure you've learned most of them from your doctor by now... Change the muscles you use when you mouse, for example, things like that. Theres also a way of typing you can learn, it took me a while to figure it out... its a little more exhausting, but it almost completely avoids most of the worst movements... It mostly involves keeping your hand in a relaxed position and using rotation of the forarm to angle your fingers at the right keys. It's not a perfect solution, but I use it sometimes when I really need to finish typing something and I'm starting to hurt pretty bad. It might help you, it might not, depending on your exact condition, but its something I was never taught or told, I kinda stumbled on it myself.

Get well soon, Torley!

And please take care of yourself. As your physician will probably have told you already, the kind of symptons your are describing rarely will go away as long as you keep your hands stressed like you do now. Just reducing the stress probably won't help. I've had similar problems for all of my "computer life" with the last attack last summer.

I would be very surprised if you could recover without keeping away from the keyboard for a while. Please try to make that possible.

And please have an expert check your workplace. In some cases, even a small change in the arrangement of seat, desk, keyboard and mouse can do wonders!

Get well soon, Torley!!!!!

Sad to read, sad to know.. be very carefull with YOU.. there are only one of you ..

Please..

/Tina

Two words: bionic hands.


feel better <3

Would we be able to keep our usual attachment points?

I know what RSI feels like, stabbing pain in the forearms with each movement of the fingers. I got that while making chain mail for an armor some years back. Took me months of near immobilisation of my hand to recover. So do take care of those wrists.
Once I was healed, I started using a nifty gadget to strenghten the forearm muscles, I would not leave home without it now. Check out www.powerballs.com, not a joke! Very effective.

Sorry to hear that. Get well and take your time healing. RSI is serious stuff, don't take it lightly.

Goodness Torley! Get better soon! My hands kill after typing large amounts for web pages and such, and I bet that doesn't even come close to RSI. A friend swears by squeasing the fleshy part of the hand between the thumb and hand itself for a few minutes for getting rid of hand pain, its supposed to release endorphins or something, I forget. Worth a shot maybe .

Zap

Edit: PS: Found a program that reminds you take breaks from the computer by showing you a random picture from a collection you compile yourself. I liked the sound of it anyway! RSI Break.

Take your time. Where joints are concerned an ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure.