Setup against wrist strain and pronation

physicist

12 Jun 2016, 20:05

I am a physicist and programmer, most of my time is spend on the computer. Most stuff is done with the keyboard, I only use the mouse for browing and some tasks which are cumbersome on the command line.

A couple weeks ago I was hit with some wrist pain in my left (non-mouse) hand which I never had before in this way. By talking to a couple people and especially one colleague who experienced pretty bad pains in his shoulders and has gone the whole nine yards to cope with that got me to this: I have a pronation problem in both hands. Also using a mouse is perhaps not the best thing to do.

My current keyboard is a Filco Majestouch. That is quite a nice keyboard if one thinks inside the box. To get rid of the pronation I looked at other keyboards and realized that the ones like Typematrix, Truly Ergnonomic are not going to cover that. The Kinesis Advantage does not seem to do very much against pronation. The Microsoft Natural Ergonomic 4000 (which I used to own) was rather nice; the key switches sucked pretty badly, though. I ended up ordering a Keyboard.io, but I try to be realistic about the shipping date :-/.

For the meantime I build this with cardboard and duct-tape:

https://i.imgur.com/WUbYiMT.jpg

Now I have horrible rubber dome switches on the “bad” hand, but at least less pronation. Switching the keyboards around would move the mouse away even farther, perhaps that is not good either.

I hope that the keyboard.io ships in say October and I will have to make do with the current setup until then.

Said colleage uses a Kensington SlimBlade trackball with an additional wrist cushion. Also he told me to not use the ThinkPad TrackPoint as he destroyed his shoulder with that. For now I have just set it to a very high sensitivity such that I do not need much force.

For the mouse I have a small Logitech Mouse:

Image

This has served me quite well. One of my first mice was a Logitech G5. Only after switching to an Apple Mighty Mouse I realized that I am a “fingertip grip” and not a “palm grip” person. Since then I had a Razer Diamondback 3G and now this simple Logitech one.

Because I wanted to relieve my left hand a bit I started to do a few more things with the mouse. A similar strain has kicked in there and I thought that the mouse-hand needs some care as well. This Friday I started to use an ergonomic mouse by CSL:

Image

One can clearly see that this helps against the pronation:

Image
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However, I am now experiencing strain (which could be simple muscle ache) in my lower arm which I feel not quite good about. From the images I gather that I now go into palm grip with that mouse. This forces me to move the mouse with my lower arm and wrist which is of course something I am not used to (and do not want to do because of my shoulder!). Perhaps this mouse is good for the pronation but bad for wrist, lower arm and shoulder?

By now I am a little overwhelmed with possible options to relieve this pain. My general physician told me that I should try to type less (obviously) and perhaps contact some workspace expert. I'll try to find somebody in my town to look at my problem in person. However, I fear that most physicians are rather non-geeky and do now know about the world of non-standard human input devices. So I would like to ask here where I am sure that you know a vast amount of funny devices :-).

My whole setup should be quite good regarding ergonomics:
  • Chair has a good height, arm rests and sensible reclining mechanism
  • Table is high and big enough
  • Screen is high enough
  • Screen brightness is automatically with ColorHugALS and DDC/CI
  • Ambient lightings are taped to the back of the screens, no reflections on the desk.
Image

I have a few main questions:
  • Is my two-keyboard setup doing any good for my right wrist or will it make the problem even worse by having two kinds of switches?
  • What type of pointer device does have an ergonomic advantage? Could you perhaps recommend a particular product?

User avatar
elecplus

12 Jun 2016, 22:08

Have you thought about an adjustable keyboard? Both Apple and IBM made adjustable boards, and there are others.
I had a friend with the same problems, and the doctor sent him to physical therapy to lift small weights, work with dough, and other exercises to develop the large muscles that support the hands and wrists and shoulders. His pain was gone in 2 weeks.

User avatar
Eszett

13 Jun 2016, 00:03

Not long ago, maybe 2 weeks, a pain in my wrist started, that I felt together with a numbness in my pinky. Im not sure if it is "Carpal tunnel syndrome", but it was something severe and I had no doubt I have to stop it immediately. The cause was a crippled hand-to-mouse position: my ellbow came from below the desk, and the wrist was twisted towards the thumb. There are probably myriads of wrong positions that lead to similar symptoms. Im a right handed person and my ad hoc solution was to use the left hand for the mouse. So I put my mousepad + mouse on the left side of the keyboard. This worked pretty "ok", but after two days or so, I grabbed the mouse with my right hand again. The mouse still beeing on the left side of the keyboard. And the ellbow resting _on_ the table, not _under_ the table. Here a rough sketch. This position relieved the stress from my wrist and i can recommend it as ad hoc solution. It still abit cumbersome in aspects of working efficiency, but ergonomically this is relieving.
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hoggy

13 Jun 2016, 07:19

A few keyboards to take a look at -
Kinesis Advantage
Kinesis Freestyle
Goldtouch.

Since you've just ordered a keyboardio, I can understand that you'd be reluctant to spend out again on a keyboard. I've gone through several goldtouches (given them away) that I've either bought new or from ebay. The rubber domes on the one's from ebay have felt reasonable - just make sure the arm looks aligned - and def. don't buy one with a missing arm.

Are you taking rest breaks?

You might also want to look at text expansion software. Also look at macros - such as macro express. If you want to keep the budget down, you could try AutoHotKey.

For muscle ache, I've found a product called bio-freeze works for me. It's a gel that you rub onto you skin that evaporates away.

On a general note, try changing just one thing at a time, too much change at once can cause frustration, and probably more pain. Once you've settled down a bit, try changing your setup a little bit, even if it's not the most ergonomic, just to give your body a bit of a change.

The best thing I did was to swap layouts to dvorak, but it was a difficult transition for me - months of clumsy typing.

davkol

13 Jun 2016, 18:21

Ugh, that keyboard setup… I highly recommend the Goldtouch Adjustable keyboard (and if you're interested, PM me, because I'm not using mine). The thock is great too.

User avatar
Halvar

13 Jun 2016, 18:28

davkol wrote: I highly recommend the Goldtouch Adjustable keyboard (and if you're interested, PM me, because I'm not using mine).
:D

davkol

13 Jun 2016, 18:36

That thing is damn well built.
Image

jacobolus

14 Jun 2016, 01:39

The Matias ErgoPro is probably the best currently available split-standard keyboard. I think it’s quite a bit nicer than the Goldtouch or the Kinesis Freestyle.

Some folks at geekhack have been using tripods or similar for angle/position adjustment:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=53 ... msg1999684
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=78723.0

hoggy

14 Jun 2016, 20:34

...can't believe I forgot the ErgoPro - nice pick.

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