Cleaning walls causes Carpul TUnnel

Have you ever heard of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?

Everyone has a carpal tunnel. It becomes a syndrome when it swells and pushes one a nerve and causes pain and tingling and numbness in your hand. And once you have a the syndrome you have problems.

How do you get this syndrome? Repetitive motion. Doing the same thing over and over and over again. No, not like laundry...though that is repetative and painful. More like typing, sewing, playing some musical instruments, painting, etc.

If you have ever been or have ever considered being a sign language interpreter, you know that this is one of the risks associated with the job. We go to great lengths to prevent getting said syndrome. Stretching, massage, resting, stretching some more.

I have never had it. At least not a severe case. Most the times, when I am overly tired or have worked some pretty long shifts I will start to feel it. But overall, for the amount of signing I do, I have been pretty lucky.

Until this last weekend...when I wasn't interpreting.

Nope. I was cleaning walls. A lot of them. We are talking a 2,000+ square foot home. However, my problems didn't appear until I came to the upper half of the house. You know, the part that includes bedrooms. Particularly my childrens' rooms.

I was scrubbing for hours. Scrubbing that ring of grime that somehow appears on the walls where the beds were. Who knew handprints on flat paint would never come off...at least not without the paint. And dry boogars. Besides being totally disgusting...they are like cement.

And so I seem to have the syndrome. My wrists ache. They are swollen...and not because of all the crap I ate last week...though that does explain the swelling in my belly!

I'm taking ibuprfen and rubbing Traumeel on my owies. I've been resting since Monday and things are getting better. But this just verifies what I have always said....

...Cleaning hurts.

The end.