RSI, please don’t give me that crap

[Wongo]

We should all get a new job, maybe swimming with dolphins all day or something like that. But hey some of us might find the water too cold.

[silentC]

Yeah but look where it got Steve Irwin.

[Daddles]

Those who've never had RSI will always fail to understand it. I contracted mine swinging a sledge hammer. In those days, I was a surveyor and weilding the sledge was just part of the job. Well, this day, we had about 40 droppers to set into shale. The bashing and stress up my arm inflamed the point where the forearm tendons attach to my elbow and that was it. I've fought that injury for over 15 years now. At it's peak, which it has reached on at least three occasions over the years, I could hold something in my hand vertically, then start to rotate my hand and at about 45 degrees, the grip in my hand would disappear and the object would fall out. Painful in the extreme some days.

Rest is the answer, which threw a lot of stress onto my other arm, the one now doing all the work. Bearing in mind that having an injury, I wasn't doing the heavy work any more, in fact, doing as little as practical. But within two months, the other arm went as well, though fortunately not as badly and the solutions offered so far always helped with that arm. Even now, fifteen years or more later, my right arm, which was the one that went out in sympathy, can not take the full torque of driving a screw into timber using a cordless drill without a twinge of pain.

From the original injury, I was basically unable to use my left arm for over three months. Yes, I copped the malingerer tag and all the rest of it and quite frankly, the few on this thread who have alluded to the same thing deserve reddies for ignorance and intolerance.

Nowadays, the left arm is more or less normal, but I have to be very careful about having it flair up again - feel the symptoms, change the activity. The arm however, lacks strength. Sadly, at the beginning of this year, I bought a laptop and during a period where I was using the laptop flat instead of tilted, have flared up the elbow again. I was typing between 1000 and 1500 words an hour and doing so for three and four hour stretches without a break (that's what you do when you're writing, you don't stop for coffee just because 'it's time', you work while the story is hot) and basically ignored my physical pain. I'm an idiot. While it has largely subsided (because I woke up to myself), I only have about half strength in that arm now, have great difficulty opening jars and things because I can't put enough stress on the arm to hold things. I also have a rest for the laptop that tilts it up at an angle and that has solved the typing position problem. Resting the arm and being a bit more sensible has reduced it to an annoyance, but yes, as someone above suggests, I am incapable of working without pain (as a recent period laying artificial turf proved). Note the qualifier 'without pain'.

So those of you who think it's just some fashionable way of getting out of work, pull your heads in. It's as real as a dud back, a crook joint, cancer, arthritis, ulcers or any of the other things that afflicts us. It is something that will be with you all your life and requires management as soon as it begins to hurt or else the sufferer will quickly find themselves unable to work, unable to do other things - when both arms were bad, I had trouble wiping my ####, and I wasn't what is considered a severe case by any means.

Tolerance and understanding is needed. With that, the problem is managable and the sufferer can still be productive. Without it, you are crippling someone. And yes, genuine malingerers should be fired (not allowed to shoot people anymore).

Richard

[silentC]

I don't think Wongo's point was to belittle people who suffer from it. He is just saying that if that line of work causes you pain, maybe you need to do something different, rather than sticking with it and moaning about it.

I tossed in a rewarding and lucrative job as a builder's labourer to work in a music shop because of what it was doing to my back

Actually I can trace all of my chronic problems back to their source. My right ankle aches like crazy after a weekend of hard labour but that's understandable considering that I broke it 10 years ago. My left shoulder gives me curry when I do a lot of spade work but I put that down to the time I shoulder-barged a bus on my bike in Glebe Point Road 14 years ago. My lower back is always aching after a lot of bending or standing and I put that down to the time I launched myself into the air on a taboggan at Thredo and landed on my coccyx in the carpark 20 years ago.

So what did I do about it? I put in a spa bath

[dazzler]

A couple of workmates have been on sick leave for a while now. Both claimed to have suffered from RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) or OOS (Occupational Overuse Syndrome). One female joined us 3 years ago and had been on and off work ever since. The company is paying all her medical bills.

I mean if you can’t use a computer or a mouse then tough luck. Yes the company is partly responsible but surely it can’t be entirely their fault. Let’s face it, if you are physically incapable of using a mouse then maybe you should not work at all.

Secondly, why is everyone one ordering one of those special keyboards, mouses and mouse pads. They cost the company a fortune.

The world is going mad again.

I know it is not my money but..

Hi C

This is what was written.......

You must be a the glass is reaaally half full kindaguy


cheers


dazzler

[silentC]

That's just his sarcastic sense of humour. He means well, don't you Wongo?

[dazzler]

[RufflyRustic]

One heck of an interesting thread this.

Maybe my exam cram experience wasn't full-blown RSi or CTS. I can't tell as I didn't have it diagnosed. Whatever it was, it was certainly a huge scary warning, one of which I've taken note.

And yes, it's the few who rort the system that give the real sufferers a bad name .

[AlexS]

Fortunately, I've never suffered from (real or imagined) RSI. However, it seems that the advent of RSI coincided with the advent of PCs. Before then, typing was done by professional typists who had been trained, not only in which keys to hit in which order, but in correct posture, exercises, rhythm etc. These ladies (and they always were) used to type for at least 8 hours a day with no RSI. Then along came PCs, and everyone started doing their own typing. Most didn't have lessons because mistakes were easy to fix; you didn't have to change the paper or attack the screen with white-out (didn't you know that Zed?:eek: ). Suddenly, RSI exists. Coincidence? I doubt it.

[MurrayD99]

AlexS is right about it being a new problem (well, post-computers) but the reason is that with an Imperial 66 etc, you are doing lots of other stuff - carriage returns etc... getting carbons, jogging triplicates, paper in and out of the roller, stapling, filing... With a PC, you just sit there, pretty much motionless and your muscles don't like it, were't designed for it. Now swinging a sledgehammer - that is repetitive indeed and the result is not the same as computer RSI at all. Carpal Tunnel disease occurs naturally in about 5% of the population and that isn't caused by computer usage. Wendy, you probably got RSI from computer usage. Because you stopped using it so much after the exams it went away. Take a break and things go back to normal. Keep hammering away and you'll wish you hadn't.

[Terry B]

Hi Wongo


Your company doesnt pay the bills, the insurance company pays the bills through the policy they carry. (if they are paying the bills then there is something amiss ). If the company continues to experience injuries the policy may be increased.

Unlike the bad old days maintaining a fruadulant claim is very difficult if the insurer and doctors are doing their job properly.


Should I be covered? I was predisposed to injuring them so am partly to blame?

cheers

dazzler

I don't think this is correct. Workers comp only covers large claims. From what I understand if the total cost of the treatment is under ~$250 000 then the cost is added to the companies premiums over the next few years using a formula that I have forgotten. If it is over the 1/4 million then work cover steps in.

[Daddles]

RSI predates computers. The injury I have used to be called 'Tennis Elbow' and there are many variations of it out there.

The computer connection started with electronic keyboards. With a manual typewriter, you had to press the key quite hard to make it work. However, the effortless keys let to many small, repetitive movements and this is a great way to stir it up.

Richard

Did you know that AIDS is a form of RSI? That's right, it's a repetitive s.. injury

[dazzler]

I don't think this is correct. Workers comp only covers large claims. From what I understand if the total cost of the treatment is under ~$250 000 then the cost is added to the companies premiums over the next few years using a formula that I have forgotten. If it is over the 1/4 million then work cover steps in.

Hey Terry

I know I am right from a Commonwealth perspective but take the fifth on private enterprise side of things. Still think though that it would be similar as i dont know of many small business' that could handle and xtra 1/4 mil without instantly going under.

Any experts out there

cheers

dazzzler

[Driver]

I'm not an insurance expert but I can comment on Workers' Comp insurance issues from a private enterprise viewpoint. In my previous career, I was a general manager with a big private enterprise organisation.

Some points:

1. Spurious claims for any category of insurance have an impact on everyone in the entire community by inducing insurance companies to increase premiums. There is no 'victimless crime' here.

2. This is just as true for Workers' Comp as it is for, say auto insurance.

3. The notion that big companies "can afford it" is a naive and childish simplification. Do you really think any successful organisation just passively absorbs increases in costs? If they can't be off-set, rejected, negated or minimised, they get passed on - in increased consumer prices. Companies that don't do this will ultimately fail (hence the stress on the word 'successful' in the previous sentence).

4. The premiums that the bigger enterprises pay for Workers' Comp insurance are based upon the individual enterprise's track record. The heavier the claims' cost, the bigger the premiums.

5. The current Workers' Comp system is adversarial. In simple terms, the facts stated above contribute to employers trying hard to minimise their Workers' Comp premiums by establishing that employee claims are spurious.

6. In the nirvana of an ideal world, a good Employee Injury / Employee Sickness compensation system would have, as its first priority, improved safety and health for all employees. Employers, trade unions and the various relevant government bodies all piously claim that this is their first priority. Very little of what I have seen in the many Workers' Comp cases I have dealt with convinces me that there is any truth in these pious claims by employers, unions and our mates in the government. If you think that's a cynical response, you're wrong. Cynicism is about pre-judgement. My attitude is based on real experience.

7. In a period of roughly 16 years when I was in a job that required me to have an over-seeing role for between 120 and 500 colleagues, I reckon I dealt with about 40 Workers' Comp cases. I reckon 3 of them were entirely spurious and the bastards who made the claims were motivated entirely by greed. I still find it hard to believe (but I know it's true) that two of them actually underwent surgery for what medical experts informed me, off the record, were non-existent injuries that they - the medics - could not legally disprove. Most of the rest of the cases were quite genuine. Probably two of them were due to slack operational practices by the company. The rest were a messy mixture of carelessness, ignorance, inattention and misadventure by a whole bunch of people.

My take on the whole thing is that we are ill-served, as a community and a nation, by our current Workers' Compensation insurance system.

I don't have a better model to propose. The issue is complicated. If it is possible, the matter should be tackled by a group who are remote from the vested interests of corporations, trade unions and politicians. That group (again, if it is remotely possible) should be tasked to devise a new system that is aimed at providing adequate prevention and protection for the poor sods who find themselves physically and/or mentally stuffed-up by their jobs. Big call!

[felixe]

If that is the case, how did you know where to find the clock.

......Because it was 10:07 pm at night