I’ve noticed through chatting with some of you guys on comms that some of you are starting to get the odd aches and pains from playing too much E.t/Rtcw.
These odd pains could be just that, odd individual pains and nothing to worry about or they could be something else far far worse R.S.I !!
I’ve decided to put up a post to try and give advice on this crippling and extremely painfull illness.
First of all i’ll write a short bit about my experiences with this condition.
As alot of you may or may not know (depending who is reading this) i used to play a rediculous amount of Rtcw/E.t and for a while everything was fine and dandy.
Then one day i noticed the little finger on my mouse hand starting to hurt (right on the knuckle).
I soldiered on for a while untill it was really hurting.I then went to the doctor to see what he said.
He sent me away with some anti-inflamatory gell which i used for 2 weeks. After the treatment the pain had gone and i thought no more about it for 4 months,when all of a sudden the pain was back in my little finger and i noticed my little finger and the one up from it on my left hand had gone numb right on the tips.
This didnt really hurt so i just carried on playing just stopping to massage my little finger every now and then.
After another month i began to notice that my knuckles on my mouse hand would burn and give little sharp stabs of pain for the first 20 mins of playing and would then go away.
Once again i thought nothing of it and carried on thinking it was just a strain and it would get better.
Eventually the burning pain and pins and needles/numbness started effecting me during my working day and by now i was getting alarmed.
Then finally one Sunday i played my final match in Rtcw. It was against the Beer clan. In the warmup i could hardly move my mouse hand because of the pain, but after 10 mins it went away and i finished the match.
When i awoke in the morning i was in agony. Best way to describe it is it was like a tooth ache but in my right arm.
Pain would just flow and ebb up and down my arm constantly and i had to post on here and go inactive.I could’nt even hold my mouse let alone play a match.
I had to wait a month for a Doctors appointment and when i got it i had blood tests (3 of,all negative) and i was booked into physiotherapy and also i was given a months course of anti inflamatories to take.
I ended up having to wear rist splints all the time and also i began an intensive course of physio therapy on my shot to hell rists and damaged nerves in my hands.
12 weeks later it no longer hurts that much when im not on a computer and does hurt a bit when im on the p.c (like writeing this post )
I have rist and posture exercises to do every hour and also i have back strengthening exercises to do once a day.
It’s been hard work and even though i am not yet fully recovered i am heading in the righ tdirection and there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Ok onto things that can help anyone worried about R.s.i :
First of all the main damage you can do is wrist damage.Either the carpal tunnel gets inflamed in your rist pinching the median nerve (this causes the numbness) or the ulnar nerve get’s damaged.
Check out the above link for info on capal tunnel damage.
The trick is to catch R.s.i early.The earlier the quicker you can heal from it.
http://eeshop.unl.edu/rsi.html
The above link gives more info on R.s.i and is well worth checking out.
Now how do we go about combating this terrible disease.
Of vital importance is workstation ergonomics. Your rists should ne straight when playing,not resting on the table.
Back properly supported and feet flat on the floor.
Bent rists damage your median nerve.Get a keyboard pillow or a mouse bean for your mouse to support your hands.
https://secure.posturite.co.uk/acatalog/Wrist__Supports.html
Also take regular breaks from your pc. About 10 mins break for every hour you play.This break invloves leaving the p.c and not sitting there infront of it.Get up walk around ,stretch your arms out.Anything to unlock your body after it’s been in this rigid position playing games for hours on end.
When your inlimbo waiting to respawn,take your arms off the mouse pad and keyboard.move them around in large movements and stretch them out as this will help.
Don’t end up in teh nightmare i have been in and whatever you do don’t think it can’t happen to you because thats what i thought
If you ever have any questions on ergonomics,r.si or anything else related to this pm me in irc or on this webby.
Happy and safe gaming everyone.
Max :XX
The above is a thread i put up on my clan website a while back.It has now been 32 weeks since i had to stop playing E.t and since this post i have also had to have steroid injections in both of my wrists to try and calmdown the inflamation and pain around my median nerve.
Finally i now have to wait for 8 weeks and then i’m off for an operation on my wrists to hopefully cure this problem i have been having*
Hopefully after all this i can get back to full health and with the improvements in my worksurface ergonomics i can get back to playing a few games.
Btw i don’t blame the game E.t for my problems in any way (allthough it is damn addictive 
) i just wanted to make sure as many people as possible are eductated to the dangers of Rsi and to this end this post has appeared on several gaming web sites and not all of them for E.t.
If i can prevent one person from going through what i have had to suffer then this will make me feel a lot better.
Once again happy and safe gaming you crazy kids :X
- Whilst I don’t suffer from pains in my fingers or wrists, because I use an optical mouse I find that after hours of play I get dark ‘burn’ marks on the edges of my thumb and little finger. Of course it disappears overnight but it still happens all the same.
).
Been like this on and off for around 2 years and after reading the forum thread from T! webby it kinda made me realise I wasnt helping the matter…