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| Rethinking bench work with a neck problem |
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| hans:
Last year I've received a diagnosis that concludes my neck is messed up. It's likely not something I could have done anything about since I've got more congenital skeletal problems. I don't think it's necessary to get into the medical terms of diagnosis, however, doctors recommended a fusion surgery of my C2-C3 cervical vertebra and possibly C1-C2 as well. Yikes. The doctor told me that range of neck motion will be "severely compromised" after a fusion, which according to my own research is 1/3 to 50% looking up and down and about 50% to 2/3s looking left-right (if C1-C2 is necessary). I'll talk to him soon again, in person hopefully this time, about my scans and treatment plan. AFAIK surgery is the only option since the congenital malformation is a clear contraindication for chiropractic or manual therapy. At this moment I'm strongly considering going for a surgery sometime soon. However, going for such a surgery also forces me to think about the possibilities of continuing electronics work. For the time being I was recommended to be conservative with my neck usage. Short term this means I've stopped doing any electronics tinkering or bench work. However since I do electronic prototyping at work and also occasionally as a hobby, I would like to discuss about alternative options. For hobby I think that the China PCB+assembly services that have been introduced in the last few years will be a bless for me, although a bit more expensive than just building 1 or 2 boards by yourself. For work I might be occasionally be able to arrange this with a local firm, but likely not for every board. To be more specific since I'm in academia, I will likely have to do soldering or rework for my own designs since everything I do is experimental.. Therefore I've been considering the use of e.g. a Mantis Compact microscope (or similar) so that I don't have to flex my neck downwards when working on boards. I've used these before and the 3D optics were really impressive, however I did find the usable 2D work area relatively small (not sure what lens it had installed, probably 4x). And you need to sit still right in front of the viewfinder. That's what I think will likely be a bottleneck (painful pun :-//): I've been able to solder 0402 parts without magnification with my current eyesight, but I think that navigating tools or parts around the bench will likely be more of a problem. So by the off chance, I wonder if there other people on this forum that have been able to circumvent practical issues like this? I've been thinking about perhaps using an extra mirror or overhead camera on the bench, but I'm afraid those won't suffice for picking up small SMD parts (e.g. optically too small or awkward hand-eye coordination). Alternatively maybe I could use a secondary camera-based microscope with LCD just for the purpose of navigation, but again only for a specific work area. Worst case I would have to drop hands-on bench work altogether, which is a shame, but it's most important that I conserve my neck and health. However I'm sure there are plenty of things to do in firmware-land. :) |
| ajb:
That sucks, sorry to hear you're having to deal with that. Is disc replacement an option for you? AIUI (based on friends' experience and conversations with my own orthopedist) cervical disc replacements are quite effective if the problem is disc-related and have vastly shorter recovery times than fusion, but of course it depends on what the specific problem is, and whether or not the vertebral bone is healthy enough for it. Maybe one of those really nice camera-based microscopes (Tagarno?) would be worth looking at. You lose the depth perception that a mantis or even a regular stereo microscope provides, but potentially gain a lot of flexibility in how you set it up to best accommodate your mobility restrictions. |
| hans:
To answer that, I would need to explain what is actually diagnosed. I was avoiding to get too medical, so skip to the next paragraph if you don't want to know. It is not a disc herniation which is called the classic 'hernia', which could resolve on it's own if you're lucky. Rather, it is called basilar invagination (or impression, if it is acquired later on). It basically means that C2 is out of place in the neck which could put pressure on the spinal cord or brain stem whenever I move my head to look down. I also suspect that I've might also have some atlanto-axial subluxation in there (which I would want to further check out), since symptoms sometimes develop or resolve when I turn my head as well. Symptoms include neck pain and very frequent migraines among many other things, most of which are intermittent or reoccurring episodically and switching left/right side as well. To my best understanding (I still need to learn the full details of the surgery plan), the surgeon wants to fix the basilar invagination and perform a fusion to avoid further instability in the vertebra joints. Although it limits neck movement, it prevents further neurological symptoms or potentially damage (which in worst case could be lethal). They say that many people unknowingly have a (mild) BI yet are asymptomatic, however those who develop symptoms may need surgery. The Tagarno ZAP looks quite interesting. Having the camera on a hinged arm could be very flexible, instead of a static area that is being magnified. Like I said, perhaps both could be used, as a Mantis does have the 3D inspection capabilities while a hinged microscope could be a more ergonomic bench-viewfinder. I do wonder the price tag on those Tagarno units, as I've only found pricing in AUD$ (and also well over 6.5k$ ::) ). A Mantis Compact is quite a lot cheaper (2.1k euro incl VAT on Distrelec) which would be doable as an 'investment' to continue the hobby. |
| Rick Law:
Sorry to hear about your problem. While I have not encountered people with the exact same issue, I do know someone with two vertebrate segments fused. You may be surprised by how well the human body is capable of adjusting. After a while, may be your body will adjust well to it, such as looking up/down using lower vertebrate segments say pivoting around the shoulder to look up and down. It will not be as good as normal, but may be, not as debilitating as feared. I hope that would be your case - not as debilitating as you currently expect. Good luck to you. Don't let that get you down. Best wishes to you... |
| cdev:
Resveratrol is helpful in spinal and disc injury, both involving surgery and not. It has generally salutary effects on bones and spinal discs, as well as nerves, pinched or otherwise. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=resveratrol+disc https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=spine+resveratrol |
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