My little finger is a little bastard. It certainly hurts like a bastard. While it is not particularly pleasant to experience, it is a great deal of fun to wonder how come that it came to hurt. I’ve come up with several working hypotheses.
- The Blame the Mouse Hypothesis: I’ve spent the last few days working hard on a paper. Since I hate writing (even more fiercely than other things) and I suck at it (about the same as in other things), I often found myself working hardly rather than hard. I was probably spending hours on end with my little finger tentatively hovering over my mouse, waiting for inspiration not coming, hence I could have caused myself a repetitive strain injury.
- The Blame the Enter Hypothesis: As part of my research, I was naturally searching on Google. A lot. I use my little finger to hit the Enter key after I type my search. I have the tendency to get physically very expressive when hitting Enter. In verbally expressive terms, I punch the living shit out of it. It’s probably a reflex from my early years of typing on a mechanical typewriter. I could have hurt my finger by excessive Entering.
- The Blame the Exercise Hypothesis: There’s a saying in my language which translates poorly into English, but it’s along the lines that regular exercise will cripple you for life. It’s possible that I crippled my little finger as I was trying to levitate myself into one yoga pose or another. It could be argued that I would have noticed, but I wouldn’t have had to notice because I make a point of not doing yoga mindfully, so it follows that I must be doing it mindlessly.
Whichever of the hypotheses is correct, if any, typing (and the attendant fiddling with the mouse and hitting Enter) doesn’t make much to alleviate the pain. I should probably stop typing. Now.
Just bandage it to the one next to it, life goes on 😀
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Yeah, I know, I should just get over that 😉 I did seriously think of making a make-shift bandage and join my little and ring fingers in marriage.
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Think how much harder you can hit the enter key though.. Devastating
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And how much harder I could hit if I got my pinky encased in plaster 😮
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Or replaced with a titanium one? Probably go right through 😀
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I’ll follow doctor’s orders on this…
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Why? What do they know? 😀
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Good point. Doctors know nothing. I should know, as I’m also a doctor 😮
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Trust me, I am and Engineer, not a Doctor 😀
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Incidentally, I do trust engineers more than doctors. I imagine that the former, unlike the latter, know what they’re doing.
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Nah, we just wing it as well. But we tend to err on the side of caution so we often get away with it..
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I just can’t imagine using the little finger to press enter. I’m mainly a six or seven finger typist, I’ve discovered, when I tried to emulate what you do. Perhaps your pinky needs a bit of respite and rehab to recover!
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Six or seven fingers are good enough! Don’t emulate me please, unless you want to hurt your finger…
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🙂
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Oh, and your keyboard looks really different !
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I know, right 😉 It’s a regional mutation, but of course I can switch it to the international English layout too.
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Yeah, your keyboard sure looks different. But so does my husband’s on his HP — I doubt I could ever get accustomed to it.
I use my pinky to ENTER too.
Is it red and swollen?
I got my proximal thumb joint inflamed once. Boy, what a nuisance that was! I could hardly do anything …
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Ha! Good that I’m not the only person who abuses her Enter with her pinky. Curiously, my finger looks perfectly normal but hurts like hell. I hope it won’t last for too long.
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Ibuprofen!
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I’m so dumb that it didn’t occur to me to take Ibuprofen. * sigh * So today I did and it works. Thank you for actually helping me! I think I didn’t think of Ibuprofen because it wasn’t helping at all with some back and shoulder pain I was having recently. I wonder why.
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Ibuprofen is anti-inflammatory …
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I have written about RSI on http://healinginjury.info
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