Hi fellow nerdy-wrist sufferers,
Saw Kos' note about his getting better and wanted to offer some tips from my long-ago bout with carpel tunnel and repetitive-motion issues.
This was about a decade ago and while my hands and wrists aren't great, they're much better.
My doctor diagnosed carpel tunnel (which if anyone doesn't know is where a tendon that wraps around part of the wrist gets inflammed from overuse and the swelling compresses the bundle of nerves that go through the wrist to the hand, leaving your hand numb or tingly and weak)
I tried drugs. They'll really mess with your stomach. I had physical therapy. It helped eventually but was really time-consuming and expensive.
I think the best thing I did was get a really cool ergonomic keyboard (so cool they used it as a new-age tech thingee on La Femme Nikita) from Kinesis.
http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/
These keyboards are not cheap. Base model is $239. But think about how you earn your living with your hands and how miserable you are when you can't type anymore.
The kinesis is going to look and feel odd for a while, but you'll get used to it. It took me about a week. And the first time you go back to a regular keyboard after a kinesis, you won't believe how uncomfortable the regular keyboards are.
The kinesis is basically two sets of keys (one for each hand), the main keys separated by about six inches. And the keys are arranged into two bowl-like indentions, all to better fit your fingers. If you hold your hands in front of you like you're going to type on a keyboard but don't twist your wrists sideways or try to make your fingers the same length, the way regular keyboards make you do, you'll see how they designed the Kinesis to fit your hands. (What an idea! Make it fit the hands.) They also reassigned a couple of really popular command keys to the thumbs, because your thumbs are much stronger than your pinkies. (Don't worry. You will get used to it quickly. It's not that different.)
I haven't worked on any other keyboard in about ten years and I will never go back to a regular keyboard. Tried all kinds of ergonomic ones before using the Kinesis. (Should say, Kinesis makes a number of different keyboards. I have the Contoured keyboard. Haven't tried the others. Don't want to. Love what I've got.)
Now, for the mouse. The only real problems I've had in years come from the mouse. Too much mousing. (What are you going to do? We all have to mouse?)
My pattern for years was... when the right hand hurts, get a new mouse. A different mouse. I think that's pretty good advice. Change the shape of your mouse, and you know you're going to use different muscles and ligaments and tendons. Give the ones you were using a break and abuse the new ones for a while until they hurt, and then start all over.
Kinesis and other places sell a detached touchpad called a CAT, and I had one of these for a while. Took some getting used to, but it definitely helped to switch completely the way I moused. Mine cost about $80. (Again, people, this is how you earn your living, right? Or it's how I earn mine.)
After my mouse hand got sore with the touchpad, I switched to this great joystick-like mouse, the 3M Renaissance mouse. It looks like a joystick, except the base moves like a mouse. (You move the stick, so your hand is sideways like you'd hold a joystick, very un-mouse-like, but the stick is attached solidly to the base, so moving the stick moves the mouse.)
Love the joystick-mouse. I bought it on E-bay for... I'm not sure. $50 or so. At the time when I bought mine, you couldn't find them for sale in the US, but I found a web site for a company in Texas that sells them and the touchpad:
http://www.ergonomicsmadeeasy.com/...
Kinesis sells a number of other, unusual mice, but I haven't tried them. Am tempted by the side-ways mouse, though. (Again, the thing is to get your hand into a completely different position and use different muscles and tendons.) If the joystick starts hurting, I'll probably go to the sideways mouse.
Now, you're going to hate hearing this, but the absolute worst keyboards in the world are the laptop keyboards, because everything is crammed together.
If you don't believe me, take your hands, hold them out in front of you, elbows at your sides, like you are about to put them on the keyboard, but don't twist anything. Keep everything loose, feel how that feels. Then do what you need to do to make them fit on the keyboard. Twist them in mid-air in front of you and feel how that feels. Notice the difference? I bet you do. I ruined my hands by spending years on a laptop at home (writing a book or two) and using a terrible set-up on my desktop at work at a newspaper.
Which brings me to your desk. It's basically all about right angles and straight lines. When you're sitting in your chair, your feet should be flat on the floor, your thighs parallel to the floor. If you can't make this happen, get a new chair. If you still can't make this happen, raise or lower your keyboard. I'm short. I stuck two boards under my desk to raise it to the right height.
Your elbows should rest at your sides, your forearms, wrists and hands in a straight line, parallel to the floor. Do whatever you have to do to make this happen.
Your monitor should be directly in front of you when you're typing on the keyboard. Don't put it off to the side. If you do, everytime you work on your computer, you'll be twisting your neck and you don't want to spend that much time with your neck twisted. It will hurt, too.
Once you do hurt -- if you feel like your wrists are swollen or inflammed, you need ice. It cuts down on inflammation. (Okay, rest is great, too, but I know you. You won't really rest your wrists and hands, because it means getting off the keyboard and you're not going to do that.)
The physical therapists suggested taking those little paper dixie cups, fill them 2/3s full with water, freeze them until you have a block of ice, take them out, tear off half the paper around the cup and then you'll have an exposed block of ice and something to hold onto it with while you rub it on your hands. Rub fast, because rubbing ice on slowly doesn't feel good. If you can't stand having the ice directly on your skin, get a bag of frozen peas. They're perfect. You have the bag between you and the frozen stuff and the peas are small enough to conform to your skin.
If your hands aren't inflammed and it's more sore, tired muscles and tendons, you can use heat. (Although a sandwich of ice, heat, ice, back to back is best. I can explain why if anyone really wants to know.)
My favorite heat, also recommended by the physical therapists, is from a hand towel. Get it wet. Wring it out so it's not drippy wet. Put it in the microwave or the crock pot and heat it up. Wrap it around your wrists and sit there that way until the towel cools. (It will cool more slowly if you wrap a dry towel around it.) This feels fabulous. It will losen up all your sore muscles and tendons.
Strengthening your wrists is also a good idea, once they're not inflammed. Little 1-pound barbells or a soup can will do. Grip it in one hand and turn your wrist back and forth slowly. Go up and down. Go all around. This is cheap and effective.
I'm in school right now to be a massage therapist, and I have to add -- get yourself a massage. It feels great. It will help the soreness in your wrists and hands. (You earn your living with them, right? You have to have them in working order.)
If anyone else has any questions, I'm happy to answer them.
Happy keyboarding.