Bad arm, no biscuit

[louiselux]

My right arm is bad again. The doctor says it is tennis elbow, and must've been an underlying condition that contributred to the tendonitis i had in August. Anyhow, it hurts a lot and it's difficult to type or handwrite because it's my leading arm. Hello large amounts of painkillers. I have physio hopefully very soon and am off work. Again. My boss was her predictable mixture of half sympathetic, half cross, which I can deal with, just about.

In any case, this has spurred me into finaly looking at voice recognition typing software, which I have wanted for a while and which work will pay for. Anyone got any recommendations? Currently I am looking at Via Voice 10.

Comments

[lexin.livejournal.com]

About your tennis elbow...I'm finding an osteopath very helpful with mine. Aparrently, although I did hurt my arm when I fell and that is involved, the real source of the pain is my back and neck. It may be worth investigating that angle.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

I did, on that advice, and it turns out my neck is largely the culprit!

[threewalls]

I use Dragon Naturally Speaking 8, Preferred Version.

It's very good, reasonably intuitive in how you deal with it, though you need a fast computer to have it recognise your speech as you go instead of with long pauses-- but that might be something all speech recognition software requires.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Thanks - i ordered it. A friend says she handwrites stuff and then reads it out as that turned out to be quicker.

[threewalls]

I've also found that. Editing something that's already on the screen isn't so bad, but I can't talk Dragon onto an empty screen very well.

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry to hear that. Joint issues suck. I have to toss the turkey in soon, but wanted to tell you that at our university, we use Dragon for the ada compliant machines; that software is a major system hog, so it's important to have a really good, fast machine. Also, Paperback writer, a blogger, has several reviews of voice recognition software. She has terrible arthritis, IRC, and writes her novels with it. I'll google them after I've stuffed my bird.

Hope you feel better soon!

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

Here's that link: http://pbackwriter.blogspot.com/2005/12/taming-dragon.html

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It's getting better, just quite slowly.

Hope you enjoyed tossing the turkey. :D

[vivien]

I would also recommend Dragon Naturally Speaking 8.0. I tried a version of Via Voice when I was having major trouble with tendonitis, and it just didn't work very well. Dragon Naturally is much more user friendly, and I found its recgonition worked way better.

Good luck. It is miserable having to work with tendonitis, because you have to cut back on fun computer time. Mine has gotten a lot better, though, and yours will, too.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the encouragement. It's worse because it's the sort of thing you can't put a time scale on. It is improving though.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Just to ask- do you have one of those straps that go round the forearm and press on the spot that's two inches down from the elbow? I never did understand my doctor's explanation correctly- blocks the nerve impulse? blocks the muscle's motion?- but I found that eased the pain even better than painkillers.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

My osteopath has instructed me to order one of those, although for some reason I am not allowed it yet and have to have more work done first. The pain is lessening though. Very slowly.