Health issues from using wanikani

WaniKani
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Hey.
I know this isn’t the brightest thing to talk about as someone’s first post on the forums, but I felt like talking about this in order to seek some advice, or see if anyone else has possibly suffered from the same problem.

so I’ve been using Wanikani for 5-ish months now but recently I’ve been suffering from some pain in my wrists. I ignored it at first by sleeping it off then continuing on as usual. but two days ago, the pain was so intense and continuous that I had to see a doctor about it. they told me that my muscles are suffering from overexertion; possibly from excessive use of a computer. the first thing that came to my mind after hearing this was wanikani.

The thing about the way that I use wanikani is that I usually do my reviews 2 times a day with each session stretching up to 100 reviews. which means that on some days, I’d be doing up to almost 200 reviews in a single day. it’s how I keep up with the site in order to not fall behind.

Have I been using the site too excessively? and did anyone else suffer from this while using wanikani?

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That sounds like a simplified way to say RSI to me.

I sincerely doubt doing 200 reviews a day is the only factor in your condition. It certainly would have contributed, but think about it - that’s typing about 400 words a day. That’s not even enough to fill a single page.

If that alone were enough to give you RSI (or a different kind of injury - I’m no medical professional, it might not be RSI at all) nobody would be able to do any job that heavily relies on computers. There’s more at play here, I guarantee it.

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There’s no special quality of WaniKani that leads to RSI - it’s everything to do with how you’re sitting at your computer. How high your chair is, how high your keyboard is, how high your monitor is, and so forth.

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hmm
now that I think about it, the pain is mostly concentrated in my right hand; namely my thumb.
I play a lot of MMOs and I use an MMO mouse. it has a lot of buttons on the left side which I use my thumb to make use of. would that be the cause then?
I DO feel some pain after finishing my review sessions usually though so maybe it’s from both combined?

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The more probably cause. :eyes: Like @Belthazar said, consider changing how you use the computer as much as what you’re doing with it.

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You seem to be looking for one thing to blame for your RSI, probably in hopes of an easy fix.

There is no one thing to blame for your RSI. It comes from long term repeated strain.

It’s not so much what you’ve been doing, it’s also how you’ve been doing it. There are more and less ergonomic ways to type, use a mouse, etc. - and it’s all of that combined that leads to RSI.

Would using an MMO mouse for who knows how many hours contribute? Sure. Is it the root cause? Nah, probably not, unless you spend ages playing MMO’s. Again, long term repeated strain.

Aside from that, none of us are qualified to tell you what causes your hand/wrist pain. But I will tell you there’s probably not going to be one simple thing you can fix or stop or cut back on to fix your injury. You’re gonna need to make some structural changes.

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it has a lot of buttons on the left side which I use my thumb to make use of. would that be the cause then?

As somebody who used to have a mouse with a side panel - yes, it might have contributed to your condition. Keep in mind that if it’s indeed RSI - it usually develops faaairly slowly over years, and things that contribute to it are on a spectrum. Things that contribute the most are (usually, in our modern setting, but not always) badly chosen mise and phones.

From personal experience - big phones that we tend to have now are very straining on our wrists, especially on our thumbs because we often scroll with a single hand, and doing so on a relatively big screen puts a strain, not to mention that bigger phones are also heavier, and with amount of time we use them per day… hello problems.

I used to have Razer Naga and Samsung A7 2017 in the past, and both combined they did bonkers to my wrist. Naga was just a bit bigger than what I need, as much as I liked its size, and A7 2017 was both huge and heavy, so at some point the pain in my hand and specifically thumb became a norm. I was literally in pain every time I was scrolling a page on my phone. Sounds familiar in any way?

It gradually became much better when I replaced both the mouse and the phone (Razer Viper and Samsung s10e atm) - mostly the phone, as my current one is noticeably smaller and lighter while not having less usable surface (thanks god for the invention of “borderless” screens). I also noticed that my hands get tired much faster if i type on a flat keyboard, so my laptop is always put at an angle on a stand so it would be more comfortable. In regards to game and MMOs - wherever I have a chance, I play on gamepads, because they much less sctraining on hands than keyboard and mouse, especially Dualshock and Dualsense - both are very ergonomic, I can play for hours and feel completely okay after that despite having issues in the past.

That said, look into what devices you use on a daily basis and how much you use them. The phone would be the first thing I advice to pay attention too, with the mouse being right after it. Then I would pay attention to keyboard, as well. Another factors could be how much and with what you write by hand and even what type of physical activited you do. Everything matters.

The most important thing here is to try to remove the main cause of the pain as soon as possible to not let it become worse.

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I’m a software engineer so use a keyboard all day, but something about WK felt different. Sometimes my hands would feel strained; the thumbs in particular. (Does WK make me pound that space bar harder than writing prose? Who knows.)

Anyhoo, my strategy for dealing with that was to use a different finger or my left thumb for the space bar when I felt that strain. Now that my reviews are down to a handful a day, that problem is a distant memory.

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i just back from my 2 weeks hiatus because i reach my limit using WK. feel so bored and exhausted at the same time for taking the lessons. but i keep maintain my daily reviews.
from january 2021 until this sept i got 2 hiatus that keep me safe from left this website :rofl:

so far i dont get any physical suffer from using WK. maybe because my work basically in front my computers and i used to it. sometime you can do reviews on your phone while laying on your bed to decrease your pain.

i hope you find the solution. :shamrock:

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I work in IT and every day I have pain in my both writs,

at night I use a cold frozen jelly like thing over my wrist to help diminish the pain, so most of the day I do reviews on anki mode in flaming durtles to avoid typing a lot more let alone what I have already done at work related stuff.

literally I know that feeling bro.

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I don’t have any kind of answers, but just an anecdote to add.

Lately I’ve been playing Skyward Sword on the Nintendo Switch. If I do long play sessions, then my hand will hurt in certain areas when I’m typing on the computer the following day.

I’ve had this with other video games as well (namely Splatoon, which I used to play a lot before learning Japanese took over), so I’ve done plenty of testing.

It doesn’t seem immediately obvious that playing a video game (pain free) would translate to pain when doing something else (typing), but it turns out that cutting back on gaming time was the solution.

And the longer I’d play video games (hours per day, days per week), the longer I’d need to abstain from playing any video games to recover.

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A good wrist rest for typing has helped me tremendously with this

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As someone who also works in IT (what a surprise here, really xD) and writing in Japanese with a mechanical pencil a lot, I would rather say it’s everything else rather than WaniKani. I also have wrist problems sometimes, but it’s from writing for the either weekend :stuck_out_tongue: .

Oh yeah, that would happen to me when playing Dauntless (Monster Hunter clone) as well. But that only emphasizes that one really has to keep their hands and fingers in a fairly uncomfortable position for very long periods of time to see adverse effects.

However, this could also be a latent cartilage and especially collagen related issue. Might be worth doing some medical tests.

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a lot of these points did resonate with me.
I use a samsung S10 plus which is on the more heavier side of things compared to my S9+.
my keyboard is a G815 which is really slim.
with that being said, tho, I’ve been using these devices without any issue for years now, so I have some doubts about them being root causes but merely contributers.

one thing that I suspect to be the cause might be the way that I type.
I am a fast typer, I type quickly and aggressively which I imagine might be what’s straining me so much?
wanikani contributes to the majority of my typing with other things being chatting with friends on discord or in games.

I think I might have to change the way I use my devices as well as reduce my usage on them.

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that’s actually a clever way of dealing with it lol.
I might have to start adopting that strategy moving forward

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I don’t know anything about it, but this is a thing LipSurf - WaniKani Voice Dictation. Review while you eat, do chores, etc
Hope your hands get better soon either way :slight_smile:

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I just wanted to add, if you’re not already using one get a mousepad with a gel wrist support and replace it regularly if the gel starts to be less supportive. I’ve used only an MMO mouse for the last 3 years for both work and home and I’ve found that added wrist support is critical to keeping my hand feeling good when I game a lot.

I have to agree with the others, while wani kani probably contributes to your problem, it’s just one factor and it’s likely not the main culprit.

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I use a samsung S10 plus which is on the more heavier side of things compared to my S9+.
my keyboard is a G815 which is really slim.
with that being said, tho, I’ve been using these devices without any issue for years now, so I have some doubts about them being root causes but merely contributers.

I used Razer Naga for almost 3 years and A7 2017 for a bit over than 2 years with no any issues for the most of that period. The pain just came in one day and never went out after that. As I said, RSI tends to develop slowly, often you won’t notice any symptoms of it until it manifests in its full glory.

one thing that I suspect to be the cause might be the way that I type.
I am a fast typer, I type quickly and aggressively which I imagine might be what’s straining me so much?

Combined with the fact that your keyboard is slim - yes, it may contribute more than other factors. I would try to put the keyboard at an angle first and see how it changes, or try another keyboard whatsoever. Also would try to type less agressively to reduce the amount of pressure you put on your joints.

And I would look into a purchasing a smaller phone after your 10S+. Once RSI manifested, having a huge phone might make things worse because of its weight and how you need to strain your thumb to reach the left edge and the middle of the screen, and you don’t want that.

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I also would add to it that I’m left-handed, so my right wrist is free from the strain of writing by hand or doing most heavy liftings as I do those with my dominant hand. And I still developed RSI in right hand despite that.

Also I feel like we use wrong abbreviation… shouldn’t it be CTS? @_@

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You’re level 10 after 5 months, what health issues?