Shoulder Pain from Mouse Action

He who has health has hope; and he who has hope has everything. ~Arabic Proverb

I'm not sure where the time went. All of a sudden I'm approaching 50 and struggling to keep up with 5 kids 10 years old and under. During the past 15 years I've comfortably slipped into a home-based computer support job where I spend between 8-12 hours per day working in front of a computer. At first there was no thought put into computer ergonomics, I sat at the dining room table and worked from a laptop. Eventually, that evolved into working at a desk with a keyboard tray, a proper computer chair, with a regular keyboard, mouse and monitor 'plugged in' to my laptop. During the past few years though, I noticed an increasing frequency in neck ,shoulder, and back pain. Restless nights were spent flipping from side to side as my neck seemed to lock into place every half hour or so. I spent more and more time getting chiropractic and massage treatments which would offer short term relief but no long term relief to my shoulder and neck pain.

I spoke often to my chiropractor as, increasingly, I realized that my shoulder and neck pain was somehow related to my occupation. I addressed any ergonomic issues by raising my monitor to eye level and purchasing a new computer chair but the shoulder pain and burning sensation persisted. A weekend away from the computer brought relief but as soon as I returned to work I'd experience a burning sensation in my shoulder and a dull ache at night when I had completed my work. It was only while re-mediating over the pain once again one evening that I had one of those 'ta-DA' moments and realized that it must be related to reaching forward to use my computer mouse.

I went to google and entered 'computer mouse pain' and quickly realized I was not alone. My top-ten search results included a reference to 'mouse elbow' so on a hunch I input 'mouse shoulder' and voila I had a hit - this was definitely a fairly common condition. It was from there that my searching eventually led me to The Ultimate Rotator Cuff Training Guide by Brain Schiff which offers rotator cuff relief through a series of exercises over a period of 6 weeks. I had often thought of physiotherapy over the past few years as I struggled with the idea that I may have to switch careers, who wants to spend their days dealing with shoulder and neck pain due to using the computer? So there was no question of purchasing this eBook once I had read Brian's qualifications as I had easily spent many times the price on pain-killers, chiropractor, massage, etc. Here I am then, I've committed to this exercise regimen to strengthen the muscles used when using the computer mouse and am ready to document that process via this blog. Over the course of the next 6 weeks I hope to enter a blog entry at least once a week to update my progress so that those who are working through similar issues can track my results. Good luck and thanks for checking in!

Palobo