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Originally Posted by Linda Buquet
My carpal is killing me. Still need to use one of my bad hands to point the mouse but figured out a way to mouse click with my foot using another mouse. It's hard to get used to though.
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One thing that might help this problem is to change the input devices (keyboard/mouse) that you use. The ergonomic keyboard I use (
http://www.adesso.com/products_detail.asp?productid=296) has a built in touch pad below the space bar. The ergonomic key board allows the wrist to remain straight taking pressure off of the carpals. The built in touch pad allows one to move the cursor by moving a finger instead of the wrist (as is required with a mouse and those finger movements can be tuned to about 1/2 inch of movement. Best of all the touch pad is in a very convienient location.
If I use a regular mouse for as little as a week, I start to get wrist pain and my right hand gets cold. I'm able to use my keyboard with touch pad all day long every day year in and year out with the most god awful body posture with no hand or wrist pain.
It will take about two weeks to get used to the new keyboard but once you do, you'll never want to go back.
Here are some tips for using the touch pad:
1) slide the finger for long cursor movements and roll the finger for short/percise cursor movements (this is the most important tip).
2) Don't use the USB adaptor. The keyboard/touch pad work much better via the PS/2 port as you can use Adesso's mouse driver and not Microsoft's drivers which can not accelerate the mouse fast enough.
3) As you get used to the touch pad, accelerate the speed and sensitivity of the touch pad via the mouse options in the control panel. The faster the coursor accelerates the less finger movement that is required. I have my cursor set to accelerate so fast that I can move from corner to corner on my 1024x768 desktop with about a 1/2" finger movement. It will drive others nuts, but once you get used to such a sensitive cursor, you'll come to love it.
I think you will find that in time as you get used to a more ergonomic keyboard/pointing device you will have much less pain in your wrists. The traditional mouse is an ergonomic nightmare.