No nonsense.

Nothing to buy and NO SURGERY! After many years of suffering, I've finally cured my severe wrist pain. It turns out to be incredibly simple. All you need is a little makeshift gadget most anyone can build in their garage. (I thought of patenting it, but quite frankly, I can't be bothered.) Got a drill, a screwdriver, some duct tape, and scissors? Get to work.

It all has to do, you see, not with the wrist, but with the elbow.

When using a mouse, the full weight of the hand and forearm (and some of the upper arm) is concentrated in the wrist. More, it's concentrated on the outside ball of the hand. This not only means that the wrist must continually hold up all that weight as the mouse is used, but also that the weight places a torque on the wrist, wanting to rotate the hand counterclockwise (or clockwise, if you are left-handed.) The core of the problem would seem to be this continual need for the wrist to resist this weight and torque. In any event, removing THIS strain from my life has brought my wrist, and my workday—gradually—back to normal.

A note of warning: after you build your little support gadget and put it to use, it is going to take several months for the pain, gradually to disappear. For me it was six months—but every day was just that little bit less painful than the last. (Mind you, I cannot say it will work for everybody. Who could say that? What I can say is, there certainly seems no conceivable way it can do any harm.)

The solution is to build into the arm of your office-chair, a support for you elbow—or, rather, your FOREARM. (If this site had a capacity for attaching photos, I could show you what mine looks like, but alas, I am forced to use description only.)

So:

1. With you hand on your mouse as "normal," observe the position of your elbow. You are likely holding it—just slightly—up in the air, but this is enough to do the damage. Now, while still holding the mouse, drop (or lift) your elbow until your forearm is level.

2. Now, bring your gaze forward of your elbow about two or three inches—to the fatter part of your forearm.

3. THIS SPOT, in mid-air, is where you must build for yourself a little padded FOREARM support. Note: this is NOT to support your elbow; it's to support your FOREARM.

Try here, this little experiment. (Right-handedness is assumed.) While using your mouse (again, as "normal"), support that spot with your left hand. Immediately, as the weight and torque is removed from your right wrist, you can feel the benefit. Gradually, your brain will learn how to allow your wrist to relax.

3. Initially, I had bent a piece of heavy aluminum strip, 90 degrees and duct-taped it to my chair arm, thus to provide a little horizontal platform at that crucial spot. Later, I advanced to screwing it in place. In any event, figure out a way to fix this support to the arm of your office-chair. It doesn't look pretty—but it works. (Eventually!)

4. I fashioned for myself a padded forearm-rest, stuck it to the horizontal part of the aluminum bar—and have never looked back.

No more Repetitive Strain injury!

(Now, if I could only do something similar for my knees....)

Good luck, everyone

Phrixos