I Read a Lot of Physical Books, and Hold my iPhone Up all Day; Remedies for a Hurting Hand?

[HappyDude20]

Hello,

Inspired by the ‘What books are you reading?’ Thread here within the Community forum of MR, I felt inspired to bring this up:

I hold my iPhone Plus phone all day. I don’t have large hands, I’d say average hands admittedly, but I enjoy the larger screen which is why I bought the Plus iPhone in the first place. Add this to reading a few books a week, and holding these books, whether large hardcover books or small paperback books in a similar one handed fashion as I do with my iPhone and it all results in hand pain.

You know, placing the pinky finger underneath the phone or book for better stability at the sacrifice of carpal tunnel down the line?

What do you do to remedy this? I Have a book stand (pic included) that works well if I read at a desk but my college years are over and haven’t done this in a long time. I read at least an hour or two a day and hold my large iPhone in a similar fashion for much longer. Looking the stats in my setting today I’ve used my iPhone for 11 hours. On average I hold it up about 8 hours.

When I read I hold books with one hand, unless it’s a huge coffee table book which doesn’t happen to often.

 

[decafjava]

Get a bookstand, there are portable ones. Use both hands for paperbacks. Put your phone on the table, or just use it less?

 

[chown33]

I'm pretty sure you'll need to change how you're holding them.

The short humorous (or humorless) answer is, "You're holding it wrong". The more serious answer is that you may well have a Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI), which is an umbrella term that covers a range of problems. Many of them involve injuries to tendons, which due to their structure take a long time to heal. There can also be injuries to ligaments, which are the things that hold joints together, or even the cartilage on the joint's moving surfaces.

Many years ago I was diagnosed with tendinitis in the back of my hands, essentially from typing too much, for too long. I ended up making a few visits to a physical therapist, who gave me some exercises to help manage the condition (muscle strength has a bearing), told me about equipment changes (trackball instead of mouse, negative or flat keyboard tilt, etc.), and other things.

The first thing to do is to see a doctor, probably a specialist in joints or hands.