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Keep your Back Healthy While you Work

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mouser:
I've recently experienced some spots of back pain, perhaps due to moving, and i have become more aware of these issues.  I also finally got a proper desk chair for the first time in my life, which has made a real differenct (no not one of those insane $1000 aerons, but a normal chair from office depot).

ps. Make sure you also check out this thread on the DonationCoder forum discussing office chairs.

Back pain and neck pain information for patients
In-depth, peer reviewed back pain information written by physicians specifically for patients with back pain and neck pain

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http://www.spine-health.com/index.html




from http://webworkerdaily.com/

lanux128:
good post, mouser.. as a regular sufferer of back pain, this will come in handy.. :) also, just to share another source: http://www.merck.com/mmhe/au/sec06/ch094/ch094a.html

mouser:
This tip on the website really caught my eye (no pun intended) because i hadn't really noticed it but my monitors were way below my eye level:

Computer screen at eye level. The top of the computer screen should be placed so that it is at eye level. If the screen is too low it will be necessary to bend forward to look at it. Since this cannot be done with a laptop (because the screen and keyboard are connected), the laptop should be boosted up (e.g. placed on a few books) so that the laptop screen is at eye level, with an external keyboard plugged in and placed within easy reach. Extra keyboards are inexpensive and can be put at the proper height so that the elbows are bent to 90 degrees while working. Conversely, some may prefer to use their laptop keyboard, and if this is the case the same objective can be accomplished by leaving the laptop keyboard on the desk and plugging the laptop into a separate computer screen that is placed at eye level.
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Deozaan:
This tip on the website really caught my eye (no pun intended) because i hadn't really noticed it but my monitors were way below my eye level-mouser (April 12, 2007, 03:32 PM)
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Both of mine are way above eye level. This one I'm looking at right now has the bottom of the screen at about eye level, while my other one is about mid-screen at eye level.

kfitting:
I posted about this in another thread about wrist pain and mice, but I can't find that thread!

The "Trigger Point Therapy Workbook" ($13 on Amazon when I bought it) has helped relieve my pain tremendously.  If you read the reviews and go to the author's site it sounds a bit sensationalist since it seems to heal anything and everything.  The idea, however, is fairly sound.  While I did have a couple of experiences where I was in extreme pain and massage relieved the pain in under ten minutes, I found the overall concept the most rewarding.  Instead of concentrating on relieving single pains here and there, I learned that pain is usually caused from somewhere else and even trigger point massage won't relieve some of it!  Pre Christmas 2006 I was having severe pain up and down my body.  I'm in my mid-20s so this is slightly worrisome.  I tried trigger point massage and it wasn't working (despite it helping earlier). 

One night I was flipping the trigger point workbook and noticed it said that uneven hips can cause all kinds of back and leg pain.  So I tried to see if my hips were uneven... they were.  I straightened them out (no massage).  My back started to relax within about 15 minutes.  Since then, I have concentrated on posture a lot more and my pain, all over my body, has reduced SIGNIFICANTLY.  I found that I was holding my hips uneven and twisting my upper body!  Trigger point massage helps, don't get me wrong, but the workbook's description of how pain in one place is tied to other areas of the body makes the $13 spent more than worth it.  It's cheap, it's effective.

One word of warning... don't expect results unless you're willing to work on it.  You have to learn your body.  I bought the book almost one year ago now and am just starting to understand things (though I don't read the book much anymore).

Sensentionalism aside, all I can say is try it, it did help me. 

Kevin

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