photo credit: howchou

I have decided to share some of my personal stories of the side effects of a techy lifestyle because I don't believe it's fair to ask other people to share their stories without sharing your own and I want to lead by example. We also can't resolve these side effects unless we make people aware of them. So here it goes:

At the age of 24, I started to have pain on the right and left sides of my chest. I was working long hours at the computer under a moderate amount of stress from work and from recently moving in with my girlfriend (now ex-girlfriend, I'll save that painful story for another day! Ha!). I became very concerned.

I decided to go to a doctor in Princeton, New Jersey and he asked just a few questions about my day job. He asked me whether it was stressful and whether I suffered from anxiety. I told him that my job was moderately stressful and that I didn't suffer from anxiety.

Then, he prescribed some anti-inflammatories and discussed performing some tests. He wanted to do an EKG, a Chest X-Ray, and a blood test. I decided to do the tests one at a time so that I could potentially save money because I had a high-deductible health plan and I hoped that one test might eliminate the need to do the other ones. The tests all came back that I was in good health and the doctor was stumped. I wasted $500, over 5 hours of my life, and was still in pain!!!

My pain persisted for several months. Then, one day, a co-worker complained to me that his neck hurt from a car accident two years ago. I asked him when his neck started hurting and he said 6 months ago. Then, I asked "Why would your neck start hurting 6 months ago from a car accident 2 years ago?" Then, I looked at his workstation setup and I noticed that his monitor was way too low. I helped him adjust his monitor height so that he could start recovering from injury.

Then, I looked at my workstation setup. I noticed that although my Microsoft Natural Keyboard 4000 let me keep my wrists straight, it forced me to bend my shoulders inward like a chicken because it was too narrow. I decided to look for an adjustable keyboard and settled on the Kinesis FreeStyle. After a few months, my pain went away and has stayed away.

The problem with the Microsoft Natural Keyboard is that it is a one-size fits all. It may work really well for a small percentage of people. However, it isn't a great fit for most people.

I learned a lot from this experience. First, it is possible to recover from injury without pills, surgery, or expensive medical care. You just need to find and fix the root cause and then give your body time to heal. Second, my doctor did more harm than good because he wasted my time and money and didn't eliminate my pain. Third, unless the doctor was either going to refer me to an Ergonomist or prescribe a keyboard for me, he would not have been able to help me.

Has anyone had a similar experience?