LLMs may have helped my RSI
a day ago
- The author suffered from repetitive strain injury (RSI) for years, primarily from typing and coding, especially when using special characters and modifier keys.
- Small hands made it difficult to reach certain key combinations, worsening the strain.
- Various remedies were tried: ergonomic keyboards, retraining typing on home row, taking breaks, and reading pain management books.
- Pain reduced but persisted on heavy coding days, such as writing code for 4-5 hours straight.
- In 2026, the rise of AI agents writing code shifted the author's work to more design specs and prose, reducing time spent on complex keyboard use.
- As a result, serious burning pain has become rare, though the author has mixed feelings about the loss of satisfaction from manual coding.
- Overall, the health benefits from LLMs are seen as a positive trade-off.