#it's nice for what I'm sure will eventually be carpal tunnel

[noctilin]

I'm a fairly young artist(in my teens) and i've recently gotten carpal tunnel syndrome, is there any advice you have to avoid worsening my condition?

hi there! i'm sorry to hear about the cts. it's such a finicky thing but it's manageable with the proper attention. what makes it rather difficult is that cts is usually a case-to-case basis and not all treatment methods work the same for each person. so take this with caution.

that said, before anything else, I recommend that you keep in touch with your doctor and follow any medication prescribed. it's better if you have a hand specialist (orthopaedic) to look at it if you haven't yet. ask them anything you're curious about such as things that involve your regular activities.

another thing, you should know that my cts has gotten severe to the point that my orthopaedist recommended I take surgery, but at the time, my mother was vehemently against it and I was in no position to disobey her so I had to find my own way to live with the strain. I do find myself lucky that I was able to live my life a little normally after a bit of research and trial and error. just know that I'm not encouraging going against what doctors recommend, but if you find yourself in the same situation as me, then hopefully you'll be lucky.

these are what i found that worked for me and my lifestyle:

before you do anything else, do NOT do any stretches, exercise, or any activity if it causes you PAIN. it's normal to feel a bit of tension while doing stretches and exercises but you are NOT supposed to feel PAIN. stop immediately if you do and ask your doctor for advice. until then, avoid any activity and just rest your hands and wrists.

if you only have cts on one wrist (unlike me I have both,) I still recommend doing these things for both! just to keep things balanced. it'll be good prevention for the other wrist too anyways :)

you should also ask your doctor for vitamins for your cts! i took some for a while, I'm pretty sure it was vitamin B12. BUT please ask your doctor first!

stretches and exercises

for stretches, what i did was a routine of doing them before and after i get out of bed. this is very important especially if you tend to sleep with your wrists curled or under pressure, like putting it under your head. when you sleep, you are likely to hold a position for at least a couple or so hours before you move and toss and turn (sometimes not at all) this causes stress on your wrists for a prolonged time so it's important to stretch them before and after you sleep.

i also stretch before and after working/drawing. if you know you're going to be on the computer or workspace for a while, be sure to do this and do it every hour or so. your cts is more likely to give you problems if you keep doing repetitive activities such as drawing and typing without stretching.

you're going to see these things everywhere and your doctor might give you a diagram too, like mine did. but this is almost the same one I got from my ortho.

i like to do these as a break from work, but you can also do them before and after sleeping and/or working. just do each for about 15-20 seconds and make sure to relax your hand for about 5 seconds after each one to give your wrists a breather, so to speak. put on a lil silly youtube video while you do them! makes them less of a drag to do :-3

here are some great videos that helped me a lot as well! i mainly do these before and after sleeping/working but after a while I just start to do them randomly when I'm not particularly doing anything with my hands too.

what's great about these videos is that it's not sped up or skipped around, so you can do this "with" them. i personally find it hard to follow diagrams or sped up videos so it's nice to have a real time guide, if that makes sense. eventually, you'll remember these routines enough to not rely on the videos anymore. ^^

there's another exercise i like to do that I can't seem to find a video or diagram of but basically just do push-ups on the wall for about 20 times. this is also good for your back!

here is another easy one to do whenever you're idle or just want an easy stretch (old ladies taught me this lol)

when your wrists are feeling better, you can do some wrist strengthening. you can do this with a simple water bottle. don't use anything too heavy, you wouldn't want to strain. i'd say around 300~500g plastic water bottle is enough but, of course, find what works best for you! you're not here to body build, you just want some strength back on your wrists. do this upside too. about 15-20 times each.

tools

now that i've suggested the water bottle, here are some other helpful things!

1. wrist splint

to me, this is a MUST. please get anything like this whenever you can. i got mine from sports shops but you can also find them in medical supplies and pharmacies sometimes. i wore this when my wrists were still inflamed for 2 weeks. after the inflammation had subsided, I switched to using them every time I went to sleep. remember when I said how we tend to strain our wrists during sleep? this helps prevent that. don't use it when you're doing something though like being on the computer and drawing, I found it horribly uncomfortable!! using it when i was sleeping was enough for me.

2. ergonomic vertical mouse and keyboard

this mouse will help lessen the pressure on your cts while you're on the computer. some of them can get pretty expensive but honestly I just used a cheap 10$ one. it broke every 6 months but as long as it does its job!! if you have the budget for it, throw in an ergonomic keyboard as well. if not, you can opt for at least a cushioned wrist pad. also, try to get a mechanical keyboard with red switch keys. it makes them easier to click and use! membrane keyboards tend to have some resistance so I really do not recommend them.

3. stress ball

in the first exercise diagram you'll see one of them requires a stress ball. honestly just having one in general is pretty useful. squeeze it whenever you're not doing anything in particular.

lifestyle changes

here's where most of the trial error comes from. aside from drawing, I do a lot of things every day that require my hands, oftentimes straining them. chores such as cleaning, cooking, lifting groceries and whatnot. this made it difficult for me to recover during the time my cts was at its worst because BOTH of my hands were unavailable.

it was at this time my siblings didn't know how to cook either so I had to still move but with a lot of help from them. i asked them to chop anything harder than leafy vegetables, such as potatoes and carrots for me because I couldn't. i asked them to lift groceries for me and casseroles filled with water because I couldn't. the point is, if you have people around you who can help you, it's best to ask for it before hurting yourself even more. even now when my cts is more manageable, I still ask my siblings to do these things because admittedly my wrists are still weak.

some other changes i had to make was go from ceramic plating to plastic ones. this is because ceramic was too heavy for my wrists as well. i also changed from carrying grocery bags to buying a portable grocery cart. i also changed certain ways I draw and found myself more comfortable in using tools that help me. stuff like that, yknow? so it really depends on what your lifestyle is. but the rule of thumb is, don't make things harder than it should be!

speaking of ease of drawing, if you draw digitally, I highly recommend setting your hotkeys into something easier to reach. for example, my current hotkeys are like this so I don't strain my wrist and fingers from stretching so often.

this takes a while to get used to but I promise that it's worth it. :)

be careful as well of video games that put too much strain on your wrists. when I was recovering I couldn't play games like bayonetta because it was just too much button mashing and it made my wrists go nuts lol (I can't play skullgirls anymore </3)

i also play on a controller instead of a keyboard these days because it's less strain on my wrists. i use a ps4 controller so idk how other controllers would perform. also, if your game has controller vibration, TURN THAT OFF lol this thing makes my wrists go stupid every time.

i think it also is pretty obvious but, invest in a spacious and comfortable workspace! one that you have enough room to rest your arm comfortably while you draw or type or do anything for long hours. the reason I even got cts was because I had such a shitty makeshift table. you don't need to invest so much as to burn hundreds of dollars (but if you have the means, go for it!) I was able to make do with a simple desk chair and a spacious desk that was the right level for me.

remember, the goal is to lessen the strain on the wrists as much as possible. this includes pressing it onto hard surfaces and corners! big no-no! if your wrists hurt, stop everything, put the splint on and rest!

that's all i can think of to tell you. hopefully, you can find your way to manage things :) cts can be scary but with the right care, you'll still be able to draw and do things you like so long as you don't push it. take care!

[snowmuttgetsweird]

8/9/24, morning

Roommate comes home today I'm so relieeeeeved

It's boring and lonely without him. Just feels like a massive bleak void in my life when he's not here. I'm bored he's not here, I'm lonely, I'm anxious I can't see him, and I get stir-crazy and lost and don't really know how to conduct myself. I would just be standing around thinking about what I should do and then end up doing push-ups or something just to work out some nervous energy.

In the meantime I picked up a handful of groceries yesterday to make sure I can make a nice brunch for him when he arrives, including a couple 5lb bags of rice. I washed out an empty 30lb bucket of cat litter cause it already has a lid and a handle and it seems to work just fine as a rice bucket- not for food storage but as a workout device.

Gave it a shot- get very much covered in rice starch, and the workout is definitely exhausting. Theoretically, it helps strengthen all the micro muscles in your forearms to help protect you from carpal tunnel, tennis elbow, etc; really good for keyboard warriors, artists, heavy lifters- pretty much anyone that uses their hands and fingers for a lot of strenuous or continuous activity. If nothing else, it sure does a hell of a job exfoliating my hands lol. Maybe this will finally fix my fucked up cuticles. Prolly gonna start wearing a mask while using the bucket though- I dunno how much dust it kicks up but I'd hate to develop a rice allergy this way.

Pretty disappointed I couldn't pick up that Gallantmon stuff the other day, but really I should have tempered my expectations more. I'm not as hung up on it now- I'll get it eventually, I just hate waiting for it to happen.

Dunno if I mentioned already, but I started taking metamucil too. I'm not a big milk drinker, but overnight oats and protein shakes and cottage cheese have me consuming a lot more dairy than I usually do, and diets with a lot of meat and dairy tend to cause GI issues, so I figured the extra fiber would probably be a good idea while on a high protein diet. The first few days suck- not particularly painful or uncomfortable, but really gassy, which is just kinda embarrassing and annoying to deal with. It passes after the first three or four days though, and I DO notice that I seem to have more consistent BMs, feel less bloated, less gassy, and a bit lighter. My appetite means I'm trying to pack as much protein into as little actual food as possible too given how hard it is to eat as much as I'm expected to, so I'm actually overeating a lot less, which also probably helps.

That said, I haven't been particularly strict on myself about food- more for philosophical reasons than anything. The goal is just to get the protein I need, and nothing else really matters atm. There's no point in eating anything I don't enjoy, and any goal that's completely miserable to achieve is phyrric. As long as I'm getting my protein and I'm lifting to the end of my sets every time while steadily increasing the weight I lift, I WILL build muscle, and those muscles will burn more calories, which will result in weight loss. As long as I stay on top of it at least 3 times a week (ideally more, but 3 is my bare minimum atm) and don't eat a GROSS excess of calories, all I need otherwise is trust, time, discipline, and patience- all things my ADHD-addled brain struggles with, lol.

I haven't been to the gym the last three days. Skipped one day cause I got home especially late and I was wiped, skipped the next cause I was depressed, skipped last night cause a bit of time-blindness had me going out to the grocery store pretty late at night, etc, so this week has been pretty bad for gym-going, but I'm gonna get back on it. Maybe not tonight cause I close at work and my roommate is finally back home- which does mean I'll be cooking dinner for both of us when I get back- but tomorrow I'm getting back into it with a vengeance.

Wish me luck.

[letsoulswander]

I suppose it makes sense or whatever to make it really hard to delete the “program files 86x” file, but it’s also fucking annoying because 17yo me did NOT know what I was doing when I copied it onto my backup hard drive and now I have to reformat the disc