Last year when I was having problems with my left arm nerve damage and neck/shoulder pain and went to Physical Therapy, one of the things I did was get a new chair. Along with other ergonomic changes, it fixed my problems.
This chair is the best chair I've ever owned. I've had very little stiff neck issues or anything else relating to sitting at a computer 7-8 hours a day.
I didn't realize how much the chair made a difference until I had to give it up.
I gave it to my husband and now I'm sitting in his old chair. Within a couple of hours my neck and trapezius muscles are tense and hurting. This is not good.
Mark has chronic back pain. It's so serious that he had a radio frequency procedure a couple months ago to burn the nerve in his spine to stop the pain signals. He's missed days and sometimes weeks of work because the pain has been so bad.
Sitting is what aggravates his pain.
He recently started using an exercise ball to sit on and it seemed to help. I warned him that studies had shown those caused more harm than good when used for long periods of time, because your core muscles have to be super strong to support your lower back. Well, he rarely listens or believes me when it comes to that kind of thing. He had to figure it out himself.
When he did, he went back to sitting in his chair. It's an old Herman Miller aeron chair. It may have been a good chair 6 years ago, or it may not have been, but it's not good now, because as soon as he switched to it again, his back started hurting after sitting at work for a few hours.
Last week I told him to take mine and just try it and see if it helped. After only a few hours he said he felt much better. It is a fabulous chair.
After a few hours, I could tell I was no longer in my fabulous chair.
Here's the thing. I'm willing to sacrifice short term because if Mark doesn't work, we don't make money. I am not in the kind of pain he is in. It's not that big a deal for me (yet). Mark is not happy about me hurting in any way, and while I did complain at first and told him I could tell a difference right away, I'm not going to make a big deal of it and make him feel bad.
I will eventually get the same chair when we can afford it again (it's $300 and we don't have that kind of extra money right now).
In the mean time, I'm hoping my back and neck don't get too jacked up. I'll never underestimate the power of a good chair again.
3 comments:
Do you pay yourself a salary for your work at Mark's office?
I have a very crappy work chair and now I'm conscious of how uncomfortable it is.
The hydraulics on my chair are shot, so every once in a while, my chair will actually fall a little bit. Sometimes it's a sudden jolt, other times it's a slow subtle slide that I don't notice until I'm eye level with my keyboard!
Yeah, I think I need a new chair.
Call used office furniture stores and ask them to keep your name and number on file in case one comes in (if they do not have any now). Watch the sales. I have seen coupons and sale ads specifically for office chairs. Does anyone in your extended family buy for the two of you? If they do, ask for money to put toward the chair.
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