Ya Think This Might be an Addiction?

Before I go to work in the morning I usually spend at least a half hour at my computer checking email and reading web pages like Jonathon Delacour’s that have been updated overnight.

Since I’ve started doing taxes in January, I’ve ended up inputting data into a computer eight or nine hours a day. Luckily, it’s not staight data input or I would’ve been fired for inefficiency long ago. Still, I’m sitting at a computer most of that time and entering data.

When I come home, more often than not, I sit down before dinner, check my email, check the stats from my site, and start reading some of the web sites on the East Coast that have already updated their pages. After dinner, I browse a little more looking for ideas, then I sit down and try to write something half-way intelligent for my own site.

Until Monday night this all seemed perfectly reasonable. However, Moday when I tried to get up from the computer around 11:15 I discovered that I couldn’t get up. No matter how hard I tried. I finally had to drop to the floor, crawl over to the couch and pull myself up. I sat there for a good fifteen minutes before I made it up to bed where I discovered that it was nearly impossible to get my shoes off.

I was apprehensive about work Tuesday when I woke up stiff and sore, but I made it through the day relatively easily. Again, it wasn’t until Tuesday night that I had trouble getting up stairs, this time having to resort to crawling up the stairs to the bedroom. After that episode, I’m beginning to think that it might be wise to make up a bed down here next to the computer so that I won’t have to make that long climb after my last update.

Wednesday was even worse, and I barely made it through work before my back went out. Luckily I was scheduled to get off work early anyway, so I had time to go home and lay on the floor for awhile before trying to finish off the blog entry I had started Tuesday night before abandoning it out of sheer agony.

Strangely enough, here I am writing my second entry of the day just before I head out to my doctor’s appointment to see if there’s any drugs he can give me so I’ll have strength enough to update my site tomorrow.

9 thoughts on “Ya Think This Might be an Addiction?”

  1. You’ll notice that I’m not updating nearly as frequently.

    But now that I’m on pain relievers and muscle relaxers, that doesn’t bother me nearly as much.

  2. I can only say that I’m relieved the symptoms manifested in the evening, after you read the updated East Coast sites, rather than in the morning, after you’d read mine!

    Seriously though, Loren (and I realize this is the pot calling the kettle black…) you’re spending too much time in front of computers. Why not take a break from updating your site and spend the time reading, gardening, hiking, watching some trashy TV?

    Alternatively, you could lash out and buy one of the new PowerBooks and use it as a heat pad for your aching back.

  3. get one of the dumb looking ergonomic chairs that you have to kneel on, they force you to use your back muscles to hold yourself up and you feel tons better and can “sit” longer, even more so if you alternate between that and a reg. chair…course, then you look like you really are are kneeling in prayer in front of the screen..

  4. I’m not quite that bad off yet but I am often surprised at how stiff I am when I get up from the computer and think “I really need to get more excercise,” but I never do. I just stick to the same old bad habits. Even standing up to bend and stretch for a couple of minutes three or four times an hour should help a little.

  5. I tried one of those kneeling chairs last fall when my sciastica was bad – it made it worse 🙂 One of the best stretches I’ve found is easy to do and doesn’t strain the lower back but at the same time it completely stretches the calf, thigh, achilles tendon and the sciatic nerve.

    Sit parallel to a wall with your hip right against the wall, knees bent. Lay down then pivot on your hips and raise your legs up against the wall as high as they can go. Try and keep your butt as close to the wall as possible while still having the small of your back pushed firmly into the floor (pelvic tilt) and your legs straight (this is important). When you first try this you likely will find you can only straighten your legs if your butt is further away from the wall than the reach of your arms, but that will improve over time.

    Once your legs are straight start flexing your foot, pulling your toes as far back as you can (don’t hurt yourself) then flex the other way. This is what stretches your hamstring and sciatic nerve.

    This stretch “cured”, in 2 weeks, a sciatic flare up that almost had me bedridden this summer for 3 months – when physiotherapy and chirpractic had no effect at all except possibly to worsen it.

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