The understanding I picked up from having some dealings with the UK medical system and reading about it in the course of trying to deal with my RSI is that it's kind of a blanket term that gets applied to any chronic hand pain; there seem to be a whole collection of different underlying issues that manifest in similar ways. Some of those are relatively well understood and can be tested for (eg comparing nerve conductivity in different fingers can identify whether nerves are constricted in the carpal tunnel); others less so; and some chronic pain is still not understood at all. So I treat "RSI" as a convenient label if I'm trying to explain to somebody; but it's not a diagnosis and it doesn't have a single cause.
(In my particular case the conclusion seemed to be that nerves from the arm were being compressed as a result of some combination of poor posture and underdeveloped core/back muscles.)
Comments
The understanding I picked up from having some dealings with the UK medical system and reading about it in the course of trying to deal with my RSI is that it's kind of a blanket term that gets applied to any chronic hand pain; there seem to be a whole collection of different underlying issues that manifest in similar ways. Some of those are relatively well understood and can be tested for (eg comparing nerve conductivity in different fingers can identify whether nerves are constricted in the carpal tunnel); others less so; and some chronic pain is still not understood at all. So I treat "RSI" as a convenient label if I'm trying to explain to somebody; but it's not a diagnosis and it doesn't have a single cause.
(In my particular case the conclusion seemed to be that nerves from the arm were being compressed as a result of some combination of poor posture and underdeveloped core/back muscles.)