[HN Gopher] Programming with chronic pain
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Programming with chronic pain
Author : thomasvogelaar
Score : 80 points
Date : 2025-02-17 23:43 UTC (23 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thomasvogelaar.me)
(TXT) w3m dump (thomasvogelaar.me)
| shakna wrote:
| Random chronic pain sufferer here. Fibromyalgia hit me in
| puberty, and I now have a couple hundred symptoms that
| sporadically change, day to day.
|
| The aircon is a fun one. Outside of 16-18C (60-65F), the pain
| flares, and continues to flare. Mostly the referred pain and
| tendonitis. That reduces when under a fan or aircon - except the
| tendonitis. So I often end up wearing a jumper, and working under
| aircon. The two together confuses a lot of passerby.
|
| And just to add - I sometimes use STT when my hands are worse, or
| TTS when the nerves in my eyes malfunction. And I gotta say...
| The accessibility controls on most IDEs is utterly crap.
|
| If you have a hambuger menu? I might get read "triple bar" or
| "trigram for heaven". That ain't useful. If the UI absolutely has
| to use unicode symbols instead of text... Please give an alt
| text. Please.
| samename wrote:
| I had chronic pain in my neck for a couple of years. It started
| in the pandemic, so the usual guesses were it had something to do
| with working remote - which meant sitting down more, potentially
| ergonomic issues, less socializing, etc. After seeing several
| doctors, doing all the tests like MRI and CT scans, trying
| physical therapy and many other conventional and non conventional
| treatments, the key for me was seeing a pain psychologist. As
| mentioned in this article, a lot of pain takes place in the mind.
| Even though we feel it in our bodies, it's our brain telling us
| that it's a problem. After a few months of therapy, the pain was
| no longer a major facet of my life. After 6 months I felt totally
| cured and myself again. The US medical system can be a maze and
| easily spiral for chronic pain sufferers. I suspect this is an
| area where we are still learning
| willtemperley wrote:
| I'm a bit surprised you didn't mention inflammation management.
| The western diet almost entirely consists of inflammatory foods -
| refrigerated dough, packaged snacks, burgers etc.
|
| Whilst my tennis elbow is probably caused by poor ergononics and
| not warming up properly before exercising, I'm finding tiger milk
| mushroom, a known anti-inflammatory [1] is helping a great deal.
|
| [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-91256-6
| thomasvogelaar wrote:
| In my case I didn't find much impact from diet and any blood
| tests I did showed no signs of inflammation. Though as I
| mentioned closer to the end of the post, I think generally
| focussing on your health (and I'd include diet in this) is
| always good. Most things might not have an impact but something
| often will.
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| What about drugs? nsaids help, but not advisable for long term. I
| take gabapentin for longer term relief.
| nakedneuron wrote:
| Hi Thomas, sorry to hear. I'm no doctor but I've had my own share
| of bad-ergonomic-induced pain so I feel entitled to add my view.
|
| Also I write this to everybody suffering from this kind of pain.
| It's the raging epidemic of our time.
|
| This all sounds too familiar for fascia as the source of pain.
| Fascia pain is often described as "nasty". MRT doesn't show
| problems is also indicative of fascia.
|
| I may say that I saw your profile pic on LI and immediately
| noticed your hanging shoulders. Slight head-forward-posture also
| doesn't surprise if I may say so and if I'm not mistaken.
|
| My advice would be, leave the stretching behind. Theraband is an
| insult for every young healthy individual. I sorted out my
| problems by training upper limbs with weights (start with 1.5kg
| dumbbells), resistance band and also the occasional fascia roll
| aka foam roller.
|
| Let me suggest some reading to get into the matter.
|
| Beginner level: Fascial Fitness, Schleip Expert level: Anatomy
| Trains, Myers
|
| Also: Built From Broken, Hogan
|
| With kind permission, from that book:
|
| _Because posture is what you do most of the time, it is often at
| the root of joint pain, muscle imbalances, and injuries. On top
| of that, it tends to worsen with age. If you don't address
| posture, you'll be continually slapping Band-Aids on the problems
| caused by it. It's a game you simply can't win. But you can't
| just fix posture by consciously holding yourself differently. It
| takes structural changes to musculature [...]. It requires a
| combination of training your body to maintain better posture and
| consciously working to hold yourself in better positions. [...].
| While exercising, you train muscles and movements that improve
| dynamic posture, and you see a little progress from week to week.
| It's a painstakingly slow process, but it works. And it's worth
| it._
|
| Same source: _It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out -
| it's the grain of sand in your shoe._
|
| Good news is that you will get better soon if you start
| exercising regularly. Bit of a downer is, that it will take about
| the same amount of time to revert to "pristine" posture as it
| "took" you to imprint your current posture into your fascia.
|
| Pain from the 50th repetition of a weight lift has far better
| quality to it than chronic pain.
| CobaltFire wrote:
| Chronic pain sufferer due to a career where I got beaten up and
| broken (military) and autoimmune conditions.
|
| Counterintuitively, and for me, being more active helps. If I
| take a few days off because I'm lazy or tired I invariably get
| stiff and my pain ratchets up. Stretching twice a day is a huge
| help; I won't say how long as you have to come up with a routine
| that works for you. A massage every couple of months can help as
| well, as I often have spots getting bunched up that are pulling
| other things out of alignment.
|
| As for treating it, I use non-THC CBD oil, Ibuprofen, and
| gabapentin when it gets really bad. My doc is currently
| discussing TNFi's with me for my AI stuff; we shall see if I
| pursue that.
| everybodyknows wrote:
| I have similar. Try a steam bath. Beware of ibuprofen -- can
| damage intestines.
| apitman wrote:
| Forearms for me. Best advice I can give for young guns is start
| preventative breaks/stretches/exercises now. I saw it coming and
| pushed myself over the edge anyway. I've gotten to a pretty good
| place with a kinesis keyboard (the cheaper split one ) and some
| custom foot pedals for Ctrl/Alt/Shift, but have never been the
| same as before.
|
| Also, lift weights. Squats/deadlifts/bench press. Hasn't helped
| my arms much but been a game changer for back and neck pain.
| LouisSayers wrote:
| Have you tried a rice bucket?
|
| I had some upper forearm pain (likely from pullups, but perhaps
| coding as well) for around 6 months last year, and after a long
| break from pullups and trying the rice bucket it seems that the
| pain has subsided.
|
| Could be worth a try anyway!
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/kettlebell/comments/1759tyo/elbow_t...
| Rhapso wrote:
| Ironically, chronic pain drove me the other direction.
|
| Programming gave me "I forgot I have a body" levels of engagement
| with a problem. It was a way to actually find relief from pain.
| My addiction to programming was very useful in my development.
|
| I was lucky in so many ways. My pain wasn't caused by the
| kinematics of my body, instead it was a heart condition, cancer,
| Celiac and Crohn's and I have managed to cure a nontrivial part
| of it over the years (heart surgery, diet change,
| immunosuppressants).
|
| Ultimately i do not recommend the "cause yourself so much pain
| you seek refuge in flow state and become an expert" method. It
| results in a lot of maladaptive behaviors, damaged relationships
| and needing a lot of therapy (but also the money to pay for the
| therapy).
| byyoung3 wrote:
| Read John sarnos book and you will recover. It might not be quick
| but you can. Don't give up. Also look into Harvard RSI action
| thenerdhead wrote:
| I'd keep eyes on the immune system. We are already rethinking
| migraines and inflammation based on findings from COVID-19.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00456-x
|
| Did this happen after a known infection of some sort? Does it run
| in your family? These questions may be important to know the
| answers to until science gets more tests over the counter as they
| are fairly close already.
| Just_Josh wrote:
| I've had similar symptoms since college, and they continually
| worsened for a long time while I ignored them. After a few years
| of trying different solutions and doctors, I've found a
| satisfactory set of treatments.
|
| The only Orthopaedic doctor with impactful advice happened to
| have a daughter with the same issue. Loose ligaments required
| stabilizer muscles to work overtime. Her solution: supported
| strength training exercises to build up the larger muscles so
| they can compensate. For the next 6 months, I worked out 5 times
| a week, and the symptoms practically disappeared. I was able to
| work 8 hours at my computer with very little strain - compared to
| just 30 minutes at the start. The symptoms returned about a month
| after falling out of the routine.
|
| Other treatments that helped:
|
| Ergonomics - I use the Logitech ergonomic keyboard and vertical
| mouse. These have been great. I avoid using the mouse as much as
| possible, and use keyboard shortcuts + vimium browser extension
| to navigate.
|
| Compression Gloves - Just like the author, I also found that long
| sleeves help somewhat. But not nearly as much as the cheap,
| fingerless compression gloves I get off Amazon. Between these and
| the ergonomic peripherals, my symptoms are generally under
| control, so I struggle to find motivation to continue my
| workouts.
|
| Relaxing Muscles - When using a phone or game remote, support
| your wrist (and perhaps elbow) on a pillow. Avoid tightening your
| muscles - this is tricky when playing intense games. Stop doom
| scrolling.
|
| YMMV, I am not a doctor, these subjects are complicated and
| actively researched
| hollywood_court wrote:
| I suffered from chronic neck and shoulder pain for years. I had a
| cervical fusion surgery. I had a labral repair surgery. Neither
| improved my symptoms at all.
|
| I slept maybe 3-4 hours per night for ~7 years.
|
| Then one day I saw someone on Hacker News mention Dr. Sarno's
| book, and it changed my life.
|
| I convinced myself that the pain was all in my mind. I'm still
| not 100% symptom free, but I now have far more good days than I
| do bad days.
|
| I read all of his books and I try to re-read the first one at
| least once per year.
|
| It become convenient for me to blame my problems on my chronic
| pain. I fixed all of that by simply changing the way I thought
| about the pain.
|
| Now, whenever I feel the pain flaring up, I just make myself
| focus on my breathing rather than focusing on the pain. And then
| I simply forget about the pain.
| davzie wrote:
| Exactly the same as me except more general health anxiety
| symptoms that turned into real painful symptoms. I learnt about
| Dr Sarno from Dan's channel on YouTube Pain Free You. So glad
| you found similar!
| notfed wrote:
| At the risk of discounting a genuine anecdote, I feel
| inclined to point out that the grandparent and parent post
| exactly model a very trendy type of spam that I've noticed
| appearing in YouTube comment sections at an ever-growing
| rate; especially in self-help and financial-advice areas.
|
| I guess it's impossible to prove whether someone's anecdote
| is genuine or not. I'd at least suggest people try visiting a
| YouTube financial advice video, read the comments, and you'll
| see this pattern like every ten comments.
| code_biologist wrote:
| Thank you for mentioning financial advice. It's so
| difficult to find someone trustworthy, but recently I
| connected with Helene Gulbrandsen-Frafjord. She was able to
| help me invest my inheritance and my investments are up 70%
| over the past year!!
|
| (Just to be clear, this post is a joke and a parody of
| exactly the types of comments notfed is talking about. This
| type of bot engagement is a cancer on social media.
|
| To be vaguely helpful, here's an NYTimes article reviewing
| Sarno's ideas:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/09/well/mind/john-sarno-
| chro...
|
| Archive.is non-paywalled link: https://archive.is/VrIiN )
| hollywood_court wrote:
| Uh, I wrote my post myself. I am not affiliated with Sarno
| or his books at all. His books actually offer no kind of
| treatment method. Their main message is simply that pain
| originates in the mind and focusing on it only makes it
| worse.
|
| Edit: I'm pretty sure this is the post that first taught me
| about Sarno. Just based on my comment like history.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32495146#32541341
| ericmcer wrote:
| Does he talk about exercising while in pain at all? This has
| been something that really worked for me after tearing my
| achilles. After 8 months it still felt irritated 24/7 and I was
| terrified of re-injury, but ramping up the intensity of my
| ankle/calf exercises started to make it better. The harder
| exercises were probably having a minimal impact on strength,
| but they were having a huge effect on convincing my brain that
| the area was fine and it could drop its obsession with it.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| He doesn't specifically mention exercising IIRC. Although I
| found that lifting is another tool I can use to distract
| myself from the pain.
|
| He does encourage patients to stop any and all forms of
| physical therapy. I had already stopped PT by the time I read
| his first book. But I do remember thinking that the PT was
| making it worse.
|
| All of the stretching and specific exercises were only
| causing me to focus on the pain even more which lead to even
| more pain.
| jasongill wrote:
| If anyone is suffering from chronic pain that is referred pain
| from the neck and shoulders, are you sleeping on a memory foam
| mattress?
|
| I "upgraded" to a Casper mattress in 2019 and it took 5 years of
| debilitating referred pain and headaches, and attempted
| resolutions including a 12-level spinal fusion, to realize that
| the mattress was the cause.
|
| Switched back to a more traditional spring mattress and the pain
| faded within about 3 weeks.
|
| Easily the worst and most trying experience of my life which will
| have lasting effects on the remainder of my life - never in a
| million years would I have expected that the mattress was the
| cause.
| mayhaffs wrote:
| I bought a Purple mattress because I thought it would fix my
| back and neck pain and it has only made it worse. I will also
| be going back to a more traditional spring mattress soon.
| srik wrote:
| I'd also recommend sleeping on the floor with a couple sheets
| and pillows. Sounds like it should be uncomfortable, and it is
| for a bit, but after a while your body just adapts with
| postures that do wonders for spinal relaxation and relief from
| some back/neck pains. IANAD.
| nevertoolate wrote:
| I also have loose joints, had chronic back pain for years with
| periodic inflammation episodes. I also had quite a bad period
| with a herniated disk in my lumbar spine. I spend significant
| amount of my time with physical exercise. Training with a
| personal trainer and practicing yoga with a mentor - I'm training
| for yoga instructor exam also (Iyengar) The good news is that you
| most likely can cure yourself. On the other hand you have to
| realize, that you won't be the same person you were before the
| pain. Pain is (usually) your friend, will keep you on your way.
| kayo_20211030 wrote:
| I love the ads between the content and the comments; and after
| them too, just in case you missed the first impress.
| thomasvogelaar wrote:
| Wait what ads? I've never run ads. Wonder if disqus is jamming
| something in there.
|
| Can you send me a screenshot or something?
|
| Edit: Damn looks like it is Disqus, I'm going to remove that.
| I've got no interest in running ads.
| kayo_20211030 wrote:
| Nice. I liked the piece. It seemed inconsistent with the ads.
| Can't trust anyone these days :-)
| John23832 wrote:
| Chronic pain suffer here. All major joints , but specifically
| neck and back bother me most. Diet for me is key. I'm gluten free
| and low sugar at this point. I've also started to ween caffeine
| (sadly).
| locusofself wrote:
| I'm 40 have had desk job since 18.
|
| I've had back pain forever, but the thing that has been really
| bad the last few years is "migraine" or tension headache that
| feels like it's coming from my neck.
|
| The more I concentrate on my work, the worst I have it in the
| afternoon. This means I can rarely work a full 8 hour day without
| a nasty, nauseating neck migraine episode.
|
| The only thing I have found that has helped a lot is quitting
| caffeine. I switched to decaf, which does not taste as good and
| only gives me a mild placebo boost each morning. I really miss my
| coffee, but it's not worth the headaches.
| Funes- wrote:
| Word of advice, as someone who's had lots, and I mean _lots_ , of
| injuries: past the initial cooling down of the injured part of
| your body, rest is not going to heal shit, most probably.
| Stretching and working out the area will. I've recovered from
| injuries some people would've had surgeries on, by taking this
| principle into practice. Look up isolation exercises if you can't
| seem to figure them out on your own, but _work_ that part of your
| body exhaustively.
|
| Oh, and since the author of the blog post mentions "tennis
| elbow": I healed mine doing unilateral triceps extensions with a
| kettlebell. I naturally felt that it was the most straightforward
| and efficient exercise, just by messing around with the weights.
| It took around two weeks to heal completely, and I had it _bad_
| on both elbows (judo practice and pull-ups with bad form will do
| that, yeah).
| linkregister wrote:
| Some nuance: the _right_ kind of stretching and working out
| will heal the injury. The optimal way to do this is to work
| with a physical or occupational therapist to develop the right
| set of exercises for the issue. Adherence to the exercise plan
| is essential to recovery. I have learned this the hard way as a
| procrastinator.
|
| Indeed, rest alone will most likely result in a chronic issue
| that one can live with. But these injuries can be remedied even
| years later with the right physical therapy-- it is rarely too
| late to make a change.
|
| Example: nerve damage requires some unintuitive solutions that
| are difficult to isolate on YouTube or other resources (due to
| high volumes of quackery).
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| > past the initial cooling down of the injured part of your
| body, rest is not going to heal shit
|
| Rest is not for "healing" it is to avoid re-injuring something
| already weakened by an injury
|
| This is potentially very reckless advice
| ArlenBales wrote:
| I've lived with chronic pain for the last 10 years. Hip,
| shoulders, lumbar. Have tried just about everything, including
| minimally invasive surgery. 100s of appointments, over 6 MRIs.
|
| Eventually I came to the conclusion that chronic pain isn't
| curable. It's our nerves rewiring themselves to constantly send
| pain, even when no problem exists.
|
| This also gave me peace though. Until I tried everything, I
| thought my body was breaking down. I'm a very physically active
| person, who has tried to be proactively healthy their whole life.
|
| Knowing the pain isn't organ or muscle related, but is just
| fucked up nerves, is consolation. It's not preventing me from
| doing anything. I still have full range of motion and mobility,
| it just hurts, but it can't stop me from doing the things I want
| to do.
|
| So I continue to be active. I have a very high pain tolerance as
| a result, but I can cope with the pain better than years ago.
| Last year I hiked the whole 2,600+ miles Pacific Crest Trail
| despite the pain. Strangely enough, my pain actually mostly
| disappeared on the trail, but returned after I got home. I think
| the sudden change of daily habits and sleep conditions may have
| thrown my nervous system in for a loop.
| Vox_Leone wrote:
| I had a physical therapy session this morning for a neck-
| shoulder-arm issue that's been bothering me. After years of
| working at the keyboard, my musculoskeletal system finally gave
| way. This is a common problem for people who use keyboards
| extensively, including musicians--so it's something many of us,
| especially frequent users of this site, can relate to. It's often
| classified as an occupational injury.
|
| The good news is that with better posture, some equipment
| adjustments, and a new, slightly less comfortable chair, I've
| seen significant improvement and am feeling much better. So, I'm
| optimistic that you'll be on the road to recovery as well.
| Wishing you the best of luck!
| guynewton wrote:
| I've been dealing with chronic pain as well but with my pelvic
| floor/pudendal nerve. It started in May last year when I was
| sitting at work when I suddenly felt a strong tingling sensation
| to go to the bathroom and since then it has developed into a
| whole array of different symptoms. One of them being leg numbness
| which affects mostly my left leg. I went to a PT and she told me
| it could be from sitting too long as well as a lack of exercise
| and being sedentary. Some symptoms have improved with stretching
| but I am afraid of going to the gym because doing leg exercises
| and sometimes spending too much time on the treadmill can cause
| big flare ups for me. My sleep has also been affected and I wake
| up even if I do not feel any pain or discomfort.
|
| I am taking more standing breaks now, and I use the gym at my
| office during lunch time to get some steps in on the treadmill, I
| also stretch everyday and I feel like it has been helping me heal
| but it is frustrating that I am not 100% recovered yet.
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