You sit down at your computer and start to type. Your fingers tingle. Your neck hurts. You reach for the mouse: Ouch! Pain shoots through your shoulder.

Do you need to use computers -- worse, do you love using them -- yet they reward you with pain? If so, you may have one or more symptoms of RSI, or repetitive strain injury.

Screenwriter and novelist Kathy Mackel knows. Her hands have suffered plenty of abuse in ten years at the keyboard. Even chairs are a problem, thanks to a decades-old sports injury. "Sitting is my biggest challenge," Mackel says. "A bad chair can cripple me within minutes."

She has developed several tricks that help her cope, such as standing up at the kitchen counter, where she places her new laptop PC on phone books so that she does not have to bend. The kitchen/dining area dividers are ideal, she says, because they are higher than a standard counter.

"The biggest reliever of physical stress is the ability to change work locations," Mackel says. "To stand, to move to a recliner." Her ergonomic chair has manual controls that allow her to customize the seat height, arm rest height, and back angle. The chair helps, although her PC is heavy and tends to numb her lap. So she places a tray on her lap whenever she sits down to use the computer.

She avoids using a mouse, which had driven her to using wrist splints. Her laptop PC, with its touch pad in the middle of the keyboard, solves that problem. A friendlier, more responsive keyboard has also eased her pain, but not cured it. The onset of tendinitis has forced her to begin physical therapy.

But if computers are the problem, they are also part of the solution. If using a computer is a literal pain for you, then you should know about several excellent and free resources on the web. Remember that anyone can publish anything on the Internet, and you are wise to verify anything you read out there, especially when it can affect your health. Consulting a web site is no substitute for consulting a physician.

The Typing Injury FAQ (frequently asked questions) list contains a wealth of articles about dealing with the issues that ailments can cause, such as mopping a floor or brushing your teeth.

Also see IBM's Healthy Computing page. The site bills itself as "devoted to helping you use your personal computer comfortably," and is an excellent source of clear, concise information.

A good place to discuss health issues relating to computer use is the Sorehands mailing list. To join this free list, send an email to listserv@itssrv1.ucsf.edu, and type "Subscribe Sorehand firstname lastname" (without the quotes). When you subscribe, you might want to select the digest option, because traffic can be heavy.

Deborah Quilter's RSI Help page is a commercial site that lists many warning signs of RSI, such as hands falling asleep and trouble buttoning clothing.

The Harvard RSI Action Home Page is at http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/rsi/. "Basically, if your hands or wrists hurt or go numb or tingle, that is probably RSI," the web site says. "If these symptoms are associated with repetitive tasks, such as typing at a computer, it is almost certainly RSI."

Paul Marxhausen's page on "Computer Related Repetitive Strain Injury" is at http://www.engr.unl.edu/ee/eeshop/rsi.html. Prevention is much easier than cure, Paul points out, and his page has many valuable suggestions for preventing injury as you work at the computer. Among them:

• Keep your wrists straight as you type.
• Do not rest your wrists on anything.
• Touch the keyboard lightly; don't pound the keys.
• Take plenty of short breaks to stretch your muscles and to relax.
• Keep your mouse close, so you don't have to reach for it.

These resources may help you to enjoy using computers without following Kathy Mackel's painful path. Meanwhile, her pain affects other aspects of her life: playing the flute, playing and coaching softball. "Even normal activities...tying my shoes, opening jars...all are affected by my tender hands," Mackel says. "Some days it's hard to get started, knowing I'll be in pain. But I can't live without the computer. And I don't intend to."

And if you take care of your hands, you won't have to.

(Comments? Write bobsanchez@mediaone.net)