Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

[Santilli]

I was just diagnosed with CTS in both arms.
Anyone else have it, and have any solutions?
Wake up with numbness in one or the other hands.
Sometimes hands just go numb.
Left can be so bad I can't feel if I've pressed down enough to activate the mouse buttons.
Been using a cold pack for a wrist rest if it's bad.
Braces didn't really work for me...

 

[ddrueding]

I feel like I've been flirting with it for decades. Mild pain most of the time, and when it gets bad I take a break from the computer and/or focus on strength/dexterity exercises. No idea if that is an optimal strategy or not, but so far I feel like I've dodged a bullet.

 

[LunarMist]

I was just diagnosed with CTS in both arms.
Anyone else have it, and have any solutions?
Wake up with numbness in one or the other hands.
Sometimes hands just go numb.
Left can be so bad I can't feel if I've pressed down enough to activate the mouse buttons.
Been using a cold pack for a wrist rest if it's bad.
Braces didn't really work for me...

Your Dr. that diagnosed it should be giving a reference to a surgeon. There are plenty that specialise in the release surgery and there are several different versions. Get two opinions.

 

[LunarMist]

I feel like I've been flirting with it for decades. Mild pain most of the time, and when it gets bad I take a break from the computer and/or focus on strength/dexterity exercises. No idea if that is an optimal strategy or not, but so far I feel like I've dodged a bullet.

I'm sure you know that all pain is not carpal tunnel. Regardless, anything more than discomfort should lead you to behavioural changes. I had some mild pain back in the 20th century that was not and quickly resolved with ergonomic changes, especially the wrist rests.

 

[ddrueding]

I'm sure you know that all pain is not carpal tunnel. Regardless, anything more than discomfort should lead you to behavioural changes. I had some mild pain back in the 20th century that was not and quickly resolved with ergonomic changes, especially the wrist rests.

Now that I have chairs with a million adjustments, height adjustable desk, and have trained to be mostly ambidextrous with the mouse, when pain shows up I'm usually able to make some adjustments to get out of it.

 

[Santilli]

Your Dr. that diagnosed it should be giving a reference to a surgeon. There are plenty that specialise in the release surgery and there are several different versions. Get two opinions.

I was referred by my nuerosurgeon, head of pretty much everything down here, to the person that tested for it. Thought it might be due to a pinched spinal column, but appears it isn't.
Changed mice.
Using a cold pack as a wrist rest when it hurts, or I'm numb.
Had not thought of a different chair.

 

[LunarMist]

It seems like good news if only CTS. Now go see the hand surgeon. Just do it. Are you left handed or both?

 

[Santilli]

It seems like good news if only CTS. Now go see the hand surgeon. Just do it. Are you left handed or both?

Being the head of the board in SD, he's very busy, but down to earth. IIRC, appt is in August.

 

[jtr1962]

Been dealing with this since my late 20s at least, possibly longer. In part I blame it on the group punishment teachers used to give classes. I often had to write "I must not talk in class" 1,000 times in grade school because a few rowdy kids did. In any case by my late 20s working full-time was out, along with driving and doing any kind of task using extensive use of my hands on anything but an intermittent basis. CTS can be kept from getting worse by limiting your activities in this way. Even riding my bike my hands start to go numb after 15 or 20 minutes but I can still steer at least. My feet also sometimes go numb, so the CTS may have spread there also.

I never officially had it diagnosed. Got kicked off my parent's insurance in college, and couldn't afford to see a doctor once I had to pay out of pocket. I'm pretty sure it's CTS based on the symptoms, and the similarity to what my mother and sister went through.

 

[Santilli]

Surgery on left hand is done. Stiches out yesterday. Fingers still a bit numb, but no waking extreme pain in awhile. Doc thinks 6 months for nerves to fully grow back.

 

[Mercutio]

I'm overwhelmingly a trackball user rather than a mouse person, going all the way back to the Microsoft Ballpoint in the early 90s.
My wrists don't bother me at all and I spend actually obscene amounts of time on a computer. I buy a new trackball about every five years and just ordered another one, but I do kind of wonder how helpful it's been for me that I've never been a full time mouse user.

Does anybody else use a trackball more than a mouse?

 

[ddrueding]

I have a Logitech MX Ergo S that I bought one of the times my wrist started acting up. I've never been fast enough with it to switch full time. I'm currently running an MX Master 3S for my right hand and change to a Superlight in my left when it hurts. I've also experimented with a Wacom tablet.

 

[Mercutio]

From what I remember, I made the switch in about 1992. I spent about two hours getting comfortable with a trackball and it's been my primary pointing device ever since. My original reason was that my first "computer desk" was salvaged from a high school classroom, so it just had the tiny little pull-up writing surface. It didn't have room for a keyboard AND a mouse. It might be easier for me from years and years of familiarity though.

My partner is about 75% trackball now as well, although she also spends a lot of time with a Cintiq when she's working.

 

[sedrosken]

This is going to sound like sacrilege, but since touchpads finally got good for PCs I've been kind of predominantly a touchpad user for general purpose computing, reverting to a mouse when I'm playing a game where the mouse controls the camera. I can't imagine that's any better for my wrists than a mouse, but it is at least a different sort of motion. My mouse on my desktop is a Zowie EC-1, essentially a lightened Intellimouse Explorer 3.0 made by Not-Microsoft. My mouse at my laptop is a modified M720 Triathlon -- I ripped out the thumb button since I kept alt-tabbing with it while in games and you can't rebind it, even with Logitech software. Alt-Tab is useful to have on a button until it interrupts you from getting a shot off. It's still a bit small for my liking, but Logitech won't actually make the mouse I do want -- a similar mold to the Intellimouse Explorer 3.0, with the same features as the Triathlon where it'll sync to any unifying receiver and has three available connections.

As I've been using the T42 more, I've been getting back into the swing of things with the UltraNav. Yes, they had renamed the TrackPoint by that time. I'm almost decent enough with it to play a single-player FPS without dying every three seconds.

 

[ddrueding]

My experience can be summed up as: don't do anything too much. Change what you can when you think about it. Seat height, desk height, monitor height, which hand you use for the pointing device, which pointing device you use, etc.

Or go touch grass or something, but none of us were going to do that anyway....

 

[Santilli]

Update: Left hand is working well. Surgery is being scheduled on the right. Thumb hurts, getting to can't sleep level of pain. Had to rethink all the 'wrist rests' that put pressure on the area that your hands are operated on, and the area that creates CTS.

 

[Santilli]

Update on desktop.
The keyboard, Nu Phy Halo 96 V2 wireless keyboard with Kalih BOX Navy switches, Canopus Shine-through -Black/Halo V2/ Field HE/ Gem, has a flat kind of wrist rest. Seems OK.
Did get two bad switches, that happened to go into F8 And F10 slots. Not a good thing. Fixed those, and replaced one with a switch designed for that slot.

Mice. Left handed Elecom failed, and is being removed from the market. They offered a 10.00 refund, on their 2 year warranty;-(
Typical Chinese.
Right one is still working, it's the one with the dongle. Left doesn't have it. Looking around, I found my old Razer Death Adder, left handed, and it's pretty hard to find a replacement. Doesn't have current software, but the stuff that does is absurdly expensive, and isn't big enough for my hands. Seems fine after the surgery.
Don't need a mouse with 30 buttons, designed for gaming...

Left-handed MMO Gaming Mouse - Razer Naga Left-Handed Edition | Razer United States

The improved left-handed gaming mouse features an improved sensor with 99.6% resolution accuracy, 19+1 programmable buttons, and an advanced onboard memory to bring your settings anywhere.

www.razer.com

DAMN! Their price are actually reasonable, under 100 for a bunch of them. Have to think again...

 

[Santilli]

Naga is 166.00 on amazon, and not even until next month...

 

[Mercutio]

Or go touch grass or something, but none of us were going to do that anyway....

Speak for yourself.
I live literally across the street from a national park. May is peak "hey, we can go take pictures on the beach while nobody else is out there to complain about what anyone may or may not be wearing"-time.

since touchpads finally got good for PCs I've been kind of predominantly a touchpad user for general purpose computing

I'm curious what makes you draw that distinction. Touchpads have been fine for general purpose use IMO since the late 90s. I typically disable touch gestures beyond scrolling and actively dislike when touchpads are too large - one of the many, many, MANY things I dislike about Apple input devices. Apple is IMO philosophically incapable of getting input right. I will say that not all touchpads are created equal and it really sucks to find a cheap notebook where the touchpad has a hard time registering input, something I've seen mostly on low-end HP and Dell notebooks and chromebooks, but generally speaking, I'm doing everything with a touchpad I'd do with anything else other than some kinds of gaming. And those are things I'm probably not doing on a laptop regardless.