Suspected carpal tunnel syndrome
Unfortunately it seems that I have symptoms matching the carpal tunnel syndrome again. I had this before when I was pregnant of my first child. Thankfully, after the pregnancy it disappeared and it never came back, until a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, it means my hand hurts a lot during the day. At first it was only a few hours each day and I could manage by using a brace at night and taking some painkillers when needed. This went on for a few week until 1 and 1/2 weeks ago the pain has increased tremendously and driving me nuts during the whole day. It's affecting almost everything I do, not only doing my work but also holding a glass or plate, and even though I automatically keep holding heavy things several times a day, I immediately get punished by the pain that follows. I rely on my boyfriend for so many things and I can't stand having to ask for help for simple things. He's very helpful and gets a bit mad or annoyed when I keep using that hand for heavy things, in my defense, I do these things on auto pilot.
Time to face reality
This was not going away anytime soon, so I made an appointment at the medical clinic for yesterday and went to see a doctor. He checked my arm and my hand and my wrist and he suspected carpal tunnel syndrome immediately. Funny thing is that this doctor didn't speak one word English and I managed to get through the visit without the assistance of my Google translate app. Which made me a little proud, haha. Anyway, I need to make an appointment for an X-ray in another Clinic to confirm the diagnosis. I can only say that this is the first thing that I remembered, this pain is so typical and I didn't miss it all these years.
Medication
The doctor also prescribed medication, I had no I do what he prescribed until I picked up at the pharmacy. One of the tablets he prescribed is for vitamin deficiencies and the other one is prednisone. I was a bit shocked because I never had Prednisone before and it seems like a heavy medication to take when looking at the list of side effects and withdrawal symptoms. Thankfully, I only got prescribed 5 mg per tablets twice a day and for now I'm just hoping that it will relieve some of the pain as the pain has definitely increased during the last days.
Armrests needed
It also make me realize that I can't keep working on the desk with a chair without armrests because probably this is the reason that the carpal tunnel syndrome came back in the first place. I kept postponing buying a decent chair not only because I could not find one but also because I didn't want to buy one just because I needed one and then find out it was not suitable after all.
It's so much easier when you can go to all kinds of furniture outlets and stuff like that to check all the chairs they have and compare them, but without a car it's pretty much impossible to get to the shopping boulevards, let alone to visit several.
Time for a change
Today I suddenly felt that I should check one of the furniture shops that also sells online and to my surprise one of the more expensive range chairs was now offered with a 40% discount meaning it was only 20 bucks more expensive than the cheaper one I almost bought a few months ago. The reason that I didn't buy that one in the first place was Simply because it looks like a way overpriced chair that would not bring me the comfort I need.
It's been proven to be quite difficult finding the right chair that has the right height of arm rests matching the desk I work on. This is the reason my boyfriend's passed on this desk to me because he absolutely loved working standing part of the day as it's a sit-stand desk. Too bad for him that his chair is too low for this desk, meaning his arms and neck were constantly hurting.
I pulled the trigger today
I decided I could work on this desk for a little while using one of the chairs in the living room from the dining table and then buy a decent chair in a few months. But moving countries has been very costly and therefore I kept postponing. It was time to listen to my body and just buy a decent chair and today I pulled the trigger. Now I only have to wait for another week or so and hope that it's indeed suitable for this workplace. The measurements seem to be correct, but it's always a surprise until I can test it properly.
Waiting
I really hope this will bring relief because it's been nearly impossible to type even 30 minutes. Several times a day, I do exercises meant for carpal tunnel syndrome but so far, I have not found any big relief. Maybe it takes a bit longer so I will continue doing them. To give my hand some more relief, I used speech to text to write the biggest part of this blog and only edited and added the remaining parts later. It's not really ideal so far but this way at least I can continue writing (read: talking, lol). I'm not sure if I can get used to it but I guess I will have to at least until this chair arrives.
To be continued..