RSI and accupuncture

Danny’s got RSI. You can actually see me getting RSI in real time here. My RSI – numbness and loss of strength in my left arm and a horrible pain in my shoulder (I was pretty sure I’d had a stroke) – coincides with leaving my job and my Aeron chair and taking up residence in my ergonomically-unsound shed. The cure? Accupuncture (plus a proper keyboard for the laptop). My excellent NHS GP gives me five minutes with the needles and I feel miraculously better. But the NHS won’t fund accupuncture and the inflexibility of the system forbids my doctor from charging me for it so he’s giving me this mysteriously effective (I still don’t really believe in it) treatment for nothing.

A blogging injury

I’ve got some kind of RSI – pressure on a nerve in my neck makes my left arm numb (I’ve pretty much ruled out a stroke). My neck hurts and I can’t pick anything up. I’ve sort of fixed my stupid working posture and now I’m just waiting for it to get better. In the meantime, these things don’t work. They’re supposed to be mega-painkillers but they give me about an hour of relief maximum. This would be fine except I’m supposed to take them every eight hours. Worst of all, I think this might be a blogging injury. Incidentally, if you search for the words blogging injury at Google, you’ll learn quite a lot about Robert Schumann’s perplexing 1832 injury to his hand, caused by a ‘home-made mechanical contraption’ designed to strengthen his hands. The injury prevented him from becoming a concert pianist.