suffer while you work...

Hey everybody,

I don't know how much sense this post is going to make but I've recently been laid up for the past couple of days with lower back problems and I'm heavily medicated.

In light of my current situation I got to thinking about all the back problems IT professionals have being chained to a desk all day long. And I was wondering what everybody out there has for physical problems related to work and what they do to combat them.

I've recently decided, due to the stabbing pain in my lower back, to get on a good workout regimen. I've had major neck problems as well as back problems since I've started working in IT and I've done really nothing about them to really take care of them. There's nothing like pain that doesn't allow you to walk when you doped up on codeine to really make you stop and think.

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Comments

msteinhilber

The problems I run into are lower back and up between my shoulders. By the end of the day they are pretty stiff and sore feeling but I'm typically good once I get home. The real problems for me since I took my current job where I'm tied to a desk more often are problems sleeping. I am not much of a side sleeper and prefer to sleep on my back, but since being a desk worker I find it quite painful to sleep lying on my back so I have to roll to one side or another which is still somewhat painful but takes me a long time to fall asleep that way.

I work out here and there, it does help quite a bit both physically and mentally but I don't get to as often as I would like. Thankfully I am just under a week away from the last of my classes for my B.S. Then it will be just work and family life and no rigors of classes to mix in there so I'll be able to work out more as I would like and study for some certs more.

sagewalkinthere

Elbows and wrists... my family has a history of weak wrists, so it doesn't help that I spend practically all day at a PC... probably will have to have carpel tunnel surgery in like 10 years.

Wonder if excersizing would help my wrists... ???

BigTone

sagewalkinthere wrote: »

Elbows and wrists... my family has a history of weak wrists, so it doesn't help that I spend practically all day at a PC... probably will have to have carpel tunnel surgery in like 10 years.

Wonder if excersizing would help my wrists... ???

I do a lot of wierd strongman type stuff (bending nails, levering sledgehammers, grip stuff) and get sore wrists/hands a lot if I don't do some kind of rehab work. The best I've found are contrast baths (hot bucket of water and ice cold bucket of water) and alternate up to your wrists and your hands/wrists come out feeling amazing.

shednik

My company is real big on ergonomics, if you are in any type of pain you can ask to have whatever you need really to help alleviate the pain.

WilliamK99

sagewalkinthere wrote: »

Wonder if excersizing would help my wrists... ???

Doesn't work, before I got married, I exercised my wrists nightly, and I still have pain in them...

Kaminsky

Aldur wrote: »

... I've recently been laid up for the past couple of days with lower back problems and I'm heavily medicated.

In the immortal words of Monty Pyton in Holy Grail ... "Yeeewww Lucky Bas*ard !"

Only today I was finally forced into a heavily put off "Manual Handling" course. This one was specifically designed for Data Centres. Not bad half day course surprisingly as it was run by an in house guy who had been in the heavy construction industry for years. I personally always thought these Health & Safety, Manual Handling courses were all about the company covering their a$$ legally. (all the legal adverts on that TV tell me otherwise

)

Couple of interesting points..

1) Everybody (in the whole wide world apparently) suffers from some form of lower (lumbar), middle (thorasic), upper back (cervical) problems. Interestingly, PC support - lumbar mostly. Users are mostly cervical or thorasic (neck bending/twisting to grab paper files or a quick munch on their favourite muslea bar) twisting whilst pointing at their new shoes is very, very bad if the user is still in a seated position.

Maybe it was the 1980's video (the 286 gave the game away) but it seemed to me, the more "stashed away" paperwork in a user's office directly correlated to the amount of spinal abuse going on. There should have been some sort of national register judging by the tone of the video.

I did comment very early on in the video that so much progress had been made since the video had been made with stored, readily accessible, server based documentation on OS integrated file formats (pdfs, Word, Visio) to the end user that the days of needing to print everything off and stash it in a box on top of that 6 foot cabinet or under the desk, that a lot of the scary things in the video were almost irrelevant in the modern day office. [ highly paid manual handling trainer go “ WHAH ! " ] (apologies .. eight year old daughter) ... I was in a playful mood.

2) There are relatively few nerves / veins in the actual spine mechanism itself, which can in fact handle incredible weight and years and years of abuse and bad posture whilst lifting/pointing at new shoes/pushing/pulling etc until it says " OI ! " and then you get a twinge. (never, ever pick up pencil or a penny... this can kill you stone dead on the spot apparently! I may have been getting sleepy at this point)

... a) your average box of non-chinese printer paper weighs 12kg, which when picked up properly and close to the body, your spine can actually handle 10 times that weight if you use the correct geometry and principals of leverage. (how the hell they measured that is beyond me

... b) You need to walk like a robot and turn your feet before looking in any direction when carrying a heavy weight, or you are just asking for trouble. Make like you are about to cr*p in the woods before picking up anything. Especially pencils !

... c) By the time you get back problems, you are so set in your ways of bad posture that you should immediately go out and look for a good deal on a long term supply of zimmerframes. Your a$$ is grass by this point!

... d) [Personal Note: If you have had the foresight to keep emails asking you to check paper records/lift things/point the web cam at your colleagues new shoes/look out of the window to see what the weather is like, you can now sue their a$$es off ! Regardless of whether you had to don protective boots/hat/goggles/gloves when the risk manager asks you how you got injured when you are eventually on the ground writhing in agony waiting for the risk manager to let the ambulance near you. Look at the legal TV ads comment above]

How the vertebrae of the spine work together
At the very core of each vertebrae there is a flat shaped fluid bubble surrounded by a kiwi shaped mass of tissue and limited muscle encapsulated by bone. The core spinal nerves run through the centre of it all which makes corrective surgical operations next to impossible.

When weight is put on your spine, these individual bubbles between each vertebrae flatten out in a round cornered rectangle type of way and together these individual virtebrae bubbles along the full length of the spine distribute all the weight you are asking of them. Too much weight and something is got to give …. One disctincitve feature of bubbles is that they go POP when under too much stress or sharp angles are intruduced!

If you twist, bend, jerk suddenly, you risk damaging the supportive tissues/muscles surrounding this central vertebrae bubble. (Don't mess with the Kiwi ! ) As there is very little blood supply to that area, any damage can take a long time to heal during which time the bubble does what bubbles do and move into the now vacant area and become misshapen. (and suddenly quite useless at doing it's fair share in the spinal baloon weight sharing process) This situation is what they call spinal hernias or individual vertebrae collapse or prolapsed discs.

3) A point I made toward the end of the class, directed at the installation engineers in the audience, if you suddenly get short notice and screamed at on a “do it right now/put that rack mount server at u42 in the next 5 minutes or else” installation by the powers that be type of phone call and you actually feel that you really do need more heads up and at least someone else's help to do what you are being screamed at to do but you are caught on your own, don't be afraid to push back and say NO! If there is a risk, why should some office waller trying to make themselves look good in PM circles and do a power trip on you, force you to disregard your own long term health just because of your in built need to be helpful. (PMs and Managers SO know how to play a dedicated IT support pro that they should actually make violin playing hand gestures when on the other end of the phone to us - I would bet money that they really do)

Incidentally: I love doing this when a PM has been particularly obnoxious at the critical moment of their mega important installation, say (with very urgent tone of voice) "Hang on... WHAT? Oh No, No, No.... I will call you back [then hang up immediately]" then go for a coffee before you slowly saunter back and plug in their LAN cable. Leave at least 15-20 minutes and do not answer your mobile. If you don't, they will walk over you next time too. Trust me... they treat you so well from then on. You saved their a$$ in a crisis ! /chuckle..

4) As a practical we were asked to pick up a box of printer paper. When it came to my turn, I immediately asked for the trainer's help (“ask for help lifting something if you do not think it is safe to lift by yourself”) < highly paid manual handling trainer go "WHAAA?" . hehehe

Manual Handling trainer wants to make this a yearly thing that all DC staff must do (yeah - obviously you do ya cheaky bast!) ... after my input today .. he may not invite me again

On an up note I found this…. Blue M&Ms 'mend spinal injuries' - Telegraph

Sorted !!! … Kids … want some M&Ms ? I keep the blue ones…. Deal ?

EDIT: If someone asks you to pick up a pencil or a penny, think of it as a assination plot by the users on a member of the it dept. Fight back and restict their access to online PDFs... that'll learn em.

I have never drunk so much coffe in my life as I did today.

Kaminsky

WilliamK99 wrote: »

Doesn't work, before I got married, I exercised my wrists nightly, and I still have pain in them...

That is wrong on soo many levels

/usr

Doesn't work, before I got married, I exercised my wrists nightly, and I still have pain in them...

Wait, wait...don't you mean after you got married?

mikedisd2

Out desks at work are way to low, which means the monitors are too low. And we have a lot of tall people in our office.

On top of that there is the general lack of physical movement that goes with the job. Sometimes I think I can actually feel my muscles atrophy.

I go into the server room and do pushups and leg stretches. It's nice to have a private place at work.

mikedisd2

/usr wrote: »

Wait, wait...don't you mean after you got married?

No, that's after you have kids.

msteinhilber

mikedisd2 wrote: »

I go into the server room and do pushups and leg stretches. It's nice to have a private place at work.

I envy you, I would do the same if we had adequate cooling and our server room wasn't ~ 90 degrees or more.

Best I can do is walk around outside since we have a lot of trails around work, it helps but I would prefer something physical. There are a lot of people who run around lunch time, another thing I would enjoy but my employer doesn't have any showers available.

wd40

BigTone wrote: »

I do a lot of wierd strongman type stuff (bending nails, levering sledgehammers, grip stuff) and get sore wrists/hands a lot if I don't do some kind of rehab work. The best I've found are contrast baths (hot bucket of water and ice cold bucket of water) and alternate up to your wrists and your hands/wrists come out feeling amazing.

Thanks for the tip, I will try it today

Turgon

Aldur wrote: »

Hey everybody,

I don't know how much sense this post is going to make but I've recently been laid up for the past couple of days with lower back problems and I'm heavily medicated.

In light of my current situation I got to thinking about all the back problems IT professionals have being chained to a desk all day long. And I was wondering what everybody out there has for physical problems related to work and what they do to combat them.

I've recently decided, due to the stabbing pain in my lower back, to get on a good workout regimen. I've had major neck problems as well as back problems since I've started working in IT and I've done really nothing about them to really take care of them. There's nothing like pain that doesn't allow you to walk when you doped up on codeine to really make you stop and think.

It's essential to get some physical activity into your life. What with sitting most of the day and sitting studying, back problems, weight problems and simply becoming physically weaker is a real concern for IT pros. It adds up over time. Any exercise on a regular basis is essential. Even regular walking. I find doing things outdoors helps, gardening, digging, carrying things etc. Basically work that requires physical effort for a few hours. Gym and such is useful but even gym bums might find it difficult to carry sacks up and down a flight of stairs or to dig a trench or hack out undergrowth or carry heavy things. You need work that gets your whole body working and the heart and lungs working. I found regular swimming quite good for this. Cycling is ok if you push yourself. Jogging. Weights is alright but a lot of weightlifters are dreadfully unfit. I heard of a New Zealand rugby player years back who lost his place in the National team. Each night he jogged a couple of miles to a tree where he kept a shovel close by. Then he dug a hole there and jogged back home. Went back next day and filled the hole in. Repeated for weeks. Got his All Black jersey back. I would say find something like that rather than reps in a gym.

Psoasman

I used to be a massage therapist before my business slowed down and I worked on A LOT of people with low back pain, who sit way too long..I'm one of 'em now..

The main reason for the low back pain from sitting too much is your hip flexor muscles are shortened when you sit and when you stand up say, after a 3 hour vendor phone call, it takes a minute to get the muscles to relax. People will have to push with their hands to get their back to straighten up.
That's where the physical fitness comes into play. You must stay mobile or you'll slowly lose the strength and flexibility you have.