Wrist Pain

[ProjectNA]

I *know* I am going to get some grief for this post, but was curious if anyone else has had any issues with keyboard hand (left for me)? It's not really numbness of fingers, like I hear carpal is, but just pain in my wrist joint. The more I play, the more it hurts, and it hurts not to play POE : )

[Kovert]

Yeah happens to me sometimes when I've been on the computer too long, give it a couple of days for the pain to subside.

[Rick_the_new_guy]

/Ric walks into the forum with a folder filled with documents and lays it on the nearest table.

Ric: And here you go. http://www.tacticalgamer.com/world-w...al-tunnel.html

Ric: Have a good'n

[corporate]

I have been managing pain in my hands since the DC days. Mostly the pain is in the tendons of the back of my hands. I sometimes have to stop playing for 3-4 days at a time. I can play about 10-15 hours over a weekend without problems but I will usually have a low grade ache for a few days afterwards. It helps to keep my fingers stretched out by cracking my knuckles and gently pulling back each finger about once a day or so. I also never play if my hands are cold. That will cause major pain for many hours. Before playing I warm my hands up under warm water or in front of a heater and shake them vigorously to get the blood flowing. If they still hurt and I really want to play, I will take a couple ibuprofen.

[ProjectNA]

Thanks guys. Thanks Rick for the previous thread - I should have looked first. I guess my biggest concern was permanent damage. I'll try some of the suggestions.

[ANGELofDEATH]

Many years ago, I was having the same problem.. My desk has one of those lower shelves for the keyboard, and it was killing my hands and back.. After some investigation, I have found that having your wrists as straight as possible is best. Having your keyboard just above your elbows will cause your wrists to be slightly cocked forward, which is very comfortable for me.

Plus , you have to exercise everyday

[cptCuervo]

Project... I don't think that you will ever get grief about this from "serious" gamers, because most of them have had to deal with it at some point.


I had a similar issue a few years ago and went through about 3 months of PT to work out "scar tissue" in my forearms with deep tissue message. Wow, I had know idea what bad Ergonomics could do to me... it hurt.

I then did some research and repositioned my Mouse/Keyboard height as AOD suggests, and I haven't had any problems since. It seems like basic stuff, but it works.

The things we do for gaming sometimes... lmao.

[Gman]

I had this type of pain long ago. I never did figure out the problem. It went away about the same time I got married.


PS>>> Cuervo is wrong... not all of us are serious

[Kovert]

Originally Posted by ANGELofDEATH

Many years ago, I was having the same problem.. My desk has one of those lower shelves for the keyboard, and it was killing my hands and back.. After some investigation, I have found that having your wrists as straight as possible is best. Having your keyboard just above your elbows will cause your wrists to be slightly cocked forward, which is very comfortable for me.

Plus , you have to exercise everyday

Hmm maybe thats why I haven't gotten wrist pain any more, come to think of it I haven't felt much wrist pain since I've been keeping my mouse on the top level of the desk.

[icky]

I've had some short bouts of wrist pain.

- change your environment every now and then - move your monitor up or down, shift your keyboard and mouse locations and your chair height
- try to be more relaxed - yes, difficult sometimes when playing intense games

[cptCuervo]

Ok, I spoke too soon.. lmao...

[Grunt 70]

Originally Posted by Gman

I had this type of pain long ago. I never did figure out the problem. It went away about the same time I got married.

That's funny....my pain started when I GOT married....(j/k sweetie)

[Braidedheadman]

It's funny, I came in here expecting to see a couple of one-liners regarding grief and wrist pain. After the first page or two of responses, I thought it wasn't going to happen and was about to scroll to the bottom to add my own 2p until GMan's comments caught my eye. Good fun.

Anyways, on a more serious note, I agree with Icky. Adjusting one's chair height helps a lot. Find a height that allows you to extend your hand over your keyboard so that your elbows are at roughly 90 degrees. Also, if you don't already have one, find a keyboard with one of those wrist plates so that you can rest your hand at the same level as your KB rather than resting them on the desk and trying to curl your fingers over top of the KB.

One thing that has made vast improvements to comfortably playing games for me is to completely remap all KB controls. I never, ever use the standard WASD configuration. It's just too cramped. Instead, what I do is lay my (left) hand in a relaxed position over the keys in such a way that each finger lands on a key without me having to exert any control over where they happen to fall. In a sense, I literally "drop" my hand on the keyboard and wherever my fingers land, those will be the keys that I use as my "main actuation" keys, if you'll permit me to coin the phrase.

For me, numbering the fingers on my left hand 1-5 starting with the pinky, those keys happen to be:

• 1.) Left Shift
• 2.) S
• 3.) R
• 4.) G
• 5.) Space

I then map secondary actuation keys around those 5 main keys like anyone might for their WASD configuration.

The benefit of doing this, for me, has been a completely relaxed left hand and I have never experienced CT pain in my wrist as a result since. I can conceivably play for any number of hours and not feel the least bit of discomfort. It also has the benefit of opening up the keyboard so that I can easily access a wider range of keys than I could from the WSAD configuration. The only draw back is if I ask for help from people in-game, they will say, "Press the 'G' key to do such-and-such," referring to default key configurations. I then have to figure out what they mean by this and interpret it to my own key mapping scheme.

Hope this was helpful.

[MakrsMark]

i had some a year to two ago. i just try to keep everything as straight as possible. i moved my keyboard and mouse to desktop level (rather than on the desk shelf) and try to keep things aligned and natural. i don't use the tabs under my keyboard with elevates it. it just lays flag on my desk (though there's still a slight incline) and it's positioned a little to the left so keep my forearm, wrist, and hand are more straight and natural. i use a razor mouse with no pad so theres a low profile there as well. my hand rests on the mouse very closely to how it would just resting on the desk with no mouse.

i'm no doctor, but i'd try stretching your hands, wrists, and forearms between each game, or even each death. see if that helps. best of luck.

i know a woman who had to have surgery for carpal tunnel. no fun, and she's still having problems.

[Belhade]

I use a lot of these options together to keep my hands limber. The keyboard is usually flat, turned so that my left hand can access the ESDF keys without twisting. I just now put a set of lighters under the front of the keyboard to see how that feels. I use the IMAK ergoBeads mentioned elsewhere, both mouse and full keyboard pads. They're pretty great. The mouse is a Logitech G5, currently without any weights in it (I had the weights in until my girlfriend fell on me and sprained my wrist) and a small gel mousepad is on the hard plastic arm of my chair to keep my mouse-side elbow comfy. The wristpads generally make me sit higher and straighter in my chair, which I like to do for my posture anyways.

Every few minutes I stop to do some quick stretching exercises, mostly interlacing my fingers and pushing them inside out to stretch and pop my fingers, wrists, elbows and shoulders. Death respawns and mapchanges are great for this. During the day at work, or anytime they hurt especially bad, I'll massage the insides of my wrists gently.

This is just one of many hazards faced by evolving societies. Imagine what kinds of aches, pains and sore places you'd have if you, say, rode a horse your entire life!