Danger! Blogging can damage your health

I've heard of bloggers with writers block who have anxiety attacks over the pressure of feeling they HAVE to write a blog post. Still more suffer from stress, sleep deprivation, exhaustion and depression all related to their compulsion to blog.

Direct physical injuries are rare although RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) is a problem for quite a few. Alas, I fear I myself have become the latest casualty. I use a IBM Thinkpad T23 which is 8 years old. It has a red trackball mouse in the centre of the keyboard.

Photo: IBM Thinkpad Trackball Mouse Finger Injury

You use your index finger to move the mouse pointer around the screen. Recently, I noticed it seemed as if I needed to apply considerably more pressure to the trackball to move the mouse pointer. After a long 'hands online' session, I would have a Kirk Douglas-esque dimple on my index fingertip.

I started to notice a slight discomfort in the joints at the knuckles in my index finger about a month ago. That discomfort has grown to a pain requiring me to try and navigate using my other digits but with similar painful results and less coordination (you'd be surprised how tricky left handed trackballing is)

I did some googling and apparently this 'injury' is quite common so I think I'm going to have to either quit blogging or revert to a traditional mouse. The former seems a bit drastic and the latter so 'like totally' 1990's. What the hell am I gonna do?

Photo: Traditional Mouse

Tags: .Blogging can damage your health, RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury), death by blogging, ..

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