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Using two keyboards at once for pain relief

symboliclogic.io

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Re: Using two keyboards at once for pain relief

#111

Post by X-Istence »

I bought an Ultimate Hacking Keyboard and I absolutely love it. It has solved my primary complaint of feeling tired at the end of the day, and have been loving the custom key commands that can be sent depending on the layer of the keyboard.

Certain shortcuts for things like managing windows are now behind Fn + a key vs Ctrl + Option + Cmd + key.

While traveling I miss my keyboard, but because its not ortholinear at least it retains similar key position so switching to a different keyboard hasn't caused too many issues.

Re: Using two keyboards at once for pain relief

#112

Post by NortySpock »

jakub_g wrote: post #60
NortySpock wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congrats on finding and resolving your carpal tunnel problem. I switched to a basic wireless trackball[1] about 5 years into my career (10 years in industry) which has kept me mostly pain free since I can avoid moving my wrist. Still might need to look for a better keyboard and a slightly better trackball, but for anyone reading this with minor pain: don't ignore it. Try new things early and try to reduce your pain,…

Been using M570 too for some time. However recently I've read that some research suggests that thumb-operated trackballs might do bad things to your thumb and that finger-operated trackballs (like Kensington Expert) are less risky. Worth keeping in mind and digging deeper. (Don't have K.E. but planning to try it out)

Thanks for the heads up on thumb-balls not being a perfect solution. Do you have any links handy?

Re: Using two keyboards at once for pain relief

#113

Post by epakai »

An alternative to the rubber nubs is a drop of clear nail polish. I started using it on dvorak rearranged keyboards. Not sure what is best, but I got some UV curing type. A bit of alcohol removes the residue after curing, and you get a small smooth bump.

Re: Using two keyboards at once for pain relief

#114

Post by wishinghand »

ben7799 wrote: post #68
flylikeabanana wrote: post #13

I find it really odd that the OP is staring down the barrel of an RSI that's going to inexorably lock them (presumably) out of their career and passion, but the learning curve for a proper ergonomic keyboard seemed to high. I was up to an acceptable 40WPM on the Ergodox a week after switching, and his complaints about " the Cherry MX" switches fall a little flat since there's about a dozen different kinds, all with d…

There's absolutely zero clinical/valid evidence that Cherry MX switches do a shred of anything for RSI. It's all hype. There's nothing medical behind any of it. I find the extra key travel of those switches fatigues my fingers/arms far more and makes me feel far more like I'm going to have RSI. I did have full blown RSI, and ditching mechanical keyboards was a key part of getting past it. Now that's just my anecdote,…

Who are you responding to? Above comment said nothing about Cherry MX for RSI. Neither did the article's author.

Re: Using two keyboards at once for pain relief

#115

Post by NortySpock »

darthvoldemort wrote: post #62
NortySpock wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congrats on finding and resolving your carpal tunnel problem. I switched to a basic wireless trackball[1] about 5 years into my career (10 years in industry) which has kept me mostly pain free since I can avoid moving my wrist. Still might need to look for a better keyboard and a slightly better trackball, but for anyone reading this with minor pain: don't ignore it. Try new things early and try to reduce your pain,…

Thanks, good luck to you on finding a completely pain-free solution! This is the late 90s, so neurologists and other doctors weren't very useful at all. One even suggested surgery to correct my problem which got me really scared I might be out of the profession and wondering what I could do. What I found out was that there's a nerve that runs all the way down your arm into your hand/wrist, and when I twisted my right…

Is it a "vertical mouse" or something different?

examples I've heard of: https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/mice/mx-vertical-erg...

https://us.anker.com/products/a7852

Re: Using two keyboards at once for pain relief

#116

Post by jamie_ca »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #71
roganartu wrote: post #11

> I tried a few of those Kinesis split keyboards. Too squishy for me. Not far enough apart. The CherryMX Kinesis split keyboard was is too clickey for calls and screenshares. Muscle memory made it difficult to switch. This is a really cool hack, and I’m happy that the author found a solution for their pain that works for them, but this bit confused me. Kinesis are keyboards with separated key clusters, but not split…

Note, the Kinesis Advantage is the one with "cups" that have keys in them in single keyboard. The Kinesis Freestyle is split into two halves and unlike the Ergodex or similar it's just a standard keyboard layout which makes jumping back and forth between other computers less of a hassle.

I picked up a Kinesis Freestyle 2 last year, with the longer (20" I think) cable, and it's been wonderful. Standard QWERTY, and the cable is long enough that I'm in a comfortable typing position leaning fully back into my chair with my arms sitting on the armrests.

Only complaint is that the macro buttons off to the side just emit standard key presses (eg Cut sends Control+x), which I guess means I should look into the Freestyle Pro which _is_ programmable :)

Re: Using two keyboards at once for pain relief

#118

Post by NortySpock »

Izikiel43 wrote: post #84
NortySpock wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congrats on finding and resolving your carpal tunnel problem. I switched to a basic wireless trackball[1] about 5 years into my career (10 years in industry) which has kept me mostly pain free since I can avoid moving my wrist. Still might need to look for a better keyboard and a slightly better trackball, but for anyone reading this with minor pain: don't ignore it. Try new things early and try to reduce your pain,…

Trackball gang unite (?) I got the ergo one[1] and my wrist pain went away, the key is that now I don't move my wrist anymore. [1] https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/mice/mx-ergo-wireles...

Nice, I can see the tilt angle is different.

I might need to try either getting the one you linked or perhaps 3D printing a stand to tilt my existing mouse out and experiment.

Re: Using two keyboards at once for pain relief

#119

Post by cecilpl2 »

Honestly, switching to a more natural layout like Dvorak is probably one of the best things you can do for wrist pain. I don't think there have been any studies on it yet, but anecdotally it's great. Many people report likewise.

It's not easy to switch but imo it's well worth the time to optimize one of the primary interfaces with which you will interact with the world for decades to come.

It's so bizarre to me that we are all stuck on a horribly unoptimized interface and we continue to teach our children how to use it, when much-better performing alternatives are easily available.

Re: Using two keyboards at once for pain relief

#120

Post by benfrancom »

I had rsi as well, so bad I couldn't shake anyone's hand. I thought my wrist was broken. What fixed it for me was to drop the keyboard down onto my lap using a laptop desk, or "lapdesk." I believe my pain was from resting my wrists or forearms on the desk or chair armrests...So I also removed the chair armrests. Also, removing the distance from keyboard to mouse by utilizing a tablet keyboard w/o a numeric keypad. Using the i3 window manager in Linux was great, and I need to do better at using vimium in the browser to reduce mouse usage. It took me forever to find the lapdesk thing out, and there is research behind the ergonomics: http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/ergoguide.html

http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/AHTutorials/typingposture.html

In my opionion, it's worth a good read-through.

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