well if you put your hand far into the desk (away from the edge), your wrist is basically sitting on the desk correct?
I can't drag my wrist left and right while it's in physical contact with the desk, that would create friction and hurt. If i don't twist/pivot with it, i can't actually move my mouse, so i'm stumped as to how you would actually move the mouse without messing up wrist if your wrist is touching the desk haha
well if you put your hand far into the desk (away from the edge), your wrist is basically sitting on the desk correct?
I can't drag my wrist left and right while it's in physical contact with the desk, that would create friction and hurt. If i don't twist/pivot with it, i can't actually move my mouse, so i'm stumped as to how you would actually move the mouse without messing up wrist if your wrist is touching the desk haha
Cyro, i have a weird question and kind of offtopic for you. I read what you said but i can't really get the position you speak about.. Could you put a photo or image of what your are talking about ? (like position on wrists). Because i stopped playing sc2 because of wrist pain... played BW a lot and never had problems, but maybe i'm not well positioned. Was my question understandable ?
well if you put your hand far into the desk (away from the edge), your wrist is basically sitting on the desk correct?
I can't drag my wrist left and right while it's in physical contact with the desk, that would create friction and hurt. If i don't twist/pivot with it, i can't actually move my mouse, so i'm stumped as to how you would actually move the mouse without messing up wrist if your wrist is touching the desk haha
My trick: Long sleeves. (NOTE: My wrist doesn't touch the desk, but my forearm does)
I never play SC2, or any games that use a mouse unless I'm wearing long sleeves, because my glass desk has really high friction against my skin. Still, Cyro's point about mouse settings and proper posture are spot on.
Even if the gloves are only 20 bucks they still won't help shit if your settings are wrong and your posture is bad. I'd say they're not worth getting and are no more than a novelty item.
Hey I spoke with neighbor who's an orthopedic surgeon who happens to also be a gamer (he's 39) about my carpel tunnel symptoms and some of the advice I'd seen in this thread and repeated on TL.
He was absolutely adamant that if your elbows were above the desk that your wrists would be in a constant state of strain and that the advice I'd received in this thread was not only wrong, but seriously detrimental to my condition and wrist health. Since then I've lowered my chair height so that it is lower than the table, making sure my wrist is relaxed and at a natural angle rather than being above the plane of movement of my hand. It has helped tremendously. He was also extremely skeptical about Cyros ideas about mouse DPI, his opinion was simply that having a high sensitivity could cause additional strain, however that is extremely case specific and that by forcing people to use a lower sensitivity you could easily exacerbate elbow problems as well as cause tension throughout the entire arm for longer periods by forcing the subject to use more movements and muscles for the same effect. In his opinion higher DPI is a non-issue regarding carpel tunnel as long as the subject is not creating a high level of tension in their hand during play. He agreed that taking breaks and stretching are important.
I don't post to be a debbie downer but to warn other TLers that some of the advice offered in this thread might actually be harmful to yourself and has either been directly contradicted by an actual professional or is at best offered by someone with very limited medical knowledge and that it should absolutely not be used without consulting an actual professional. Specifically, I took Cyros advice about chair/elbow height and it was actually completely wrong and dangerous according to someone who is actually a doctor, operates on and works with carpel tunnel syndrome in a professional capacity. Apologies to anyone I've offended (I'm sorry Cyro I know you're trying to do a good thing and you did get a lot of things right), however I felt the need to warn others that there is no replacement for a personal doctor you can assess your specific condition and to take any advice in this thread INCLUDING MY OWN and talk to their doctor before using any of it.
He was absolutely adamant that if your elbows were above the desk that your wrists would be in a constant state of strain
It's pretty well accepted that your wrist should be either slightly above, or level with the mouse, to sit down on it naturally, not below it and angled so that you have to reach down to the mouse, that's like ergonomics 101
In his opinion higher DPI is a non-issue regarding carpel tunnel as long as the subject is not creating a high level of tension in their hand during play
The idea is that if you're trying to play to a higher degree of speed and accuracy, you need to create more tension in your wrist at a higher DPI, especially as they tend to focus very heavily on small wrist movements. Moving towards a medium sensitivity (say 1000dpi) removes much of the focus on the wrist, and you cross the screen in under 2 inches of movement, it's not like a "low sens"
All of my opinions were formed from pretty extensive research and discussion/debate with a lot of people over some years, in the general area of gaming (particularly FPS engines and osu, though they demand higher accuracy and FPS plays differently, it's much more appropriate to use waaay lower sens in FPS) and a lot of what i said was more echoing what people agreed upon, not my personal opinion (i try to avoid that now in a lot of discussions) so i don't think it's possible to be wrong on the level that you suggest. Advice for a gaming focus is very different for advice targeting say, an office worker
Maybe some stuff is also miscommunicated - by above the desk, i meant at a greater height level, not physically on top of the desk in front of you
Wrist and forearm near the desk, but not pressing down on it
Thank you. (i see we are using the same mouse). i have the wrist on the edge of the table. Is this bad ? Because i don't know what pressing down on it means
I meant like - moving side-to-side on screen with the second type of movement, where wrist is relaxed and you an just slide the arm on the X axis, rather than keeping the wrist in position and bending/stretching to reach. Generally you don't want to rely on the wrist for movements, or tense anything. If you are tensing stuff, make it stuff other than wrist
On September 27 2013 01:09 Cyro wrote: I meant like - moving side-to-side on screen with the second type of movement, where wrist is relaxed and you an just slide the arm on the X axis, rather than keeping the wrist in position and bending/stretching to reach. Generally you don't want to rely on the wrist for movements, or tense anything. If you are tensing stuff, make it stuff other than wrist
Dual screen "oblige" (don't know if the word is good) to move wrist a lot and i have 4 at work
There are lots of gaming gloves on the market but honestly, i don't think it can prevent your pain. I think you better see a doctor if the pain is persistent