Could a chap get repetitive strain injury from playing too much with his mouse?

[Sandy-Wroe]

?

[China Doll]

It depends on how hard you are playing with it and if it's just your hand you are using.

[Sqad]

Biggest danger for him, is going blind.

[rinkins]

Just one handed?

[Bbbananas]

...depends on the length of the tail.

[Sandy-Wroe]

I was hoping for advice about an ergonomically designed mouse. and, perhaps, a little bit of sympathy. Sigh.... And all I got was innuendo.
I shoulda went to Yahoo answers. :-)

[mccfluff]

i'm trying hard to avoid the obvious.....

anyway we have some peopel here who have sufferend with wrist rather than hand problems and we have bought them ergonomic mice, that combined with a wrist support bandage has helped, seey our h&s officer thsey should be able to do a dse

failing that stop playing with it

[Lil O'lady]

I will be serious for you m'dear if others won't. Yes. I suffer with RSI if I use a conventional mouse, especially for graphic work. I use a variety of mouses (mice? pointing devices?) to vary the posture of my hand and wrist, including a very expensive wrist mouse recommended by the arthritis association, and a dead cheap graphic tablet I got at tesco. Otherwise my hand cramps up and i get pain from wrist to shoulder.

[saxy_jag]

Yes, Sandy-Wroe, they could, because I have just such a condition with just such a cause. I was first diagnosed (after a very cursory locum GP examination) with RSI, but then a physio and my own GP diagnosed Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. We've tried steroid injection and that didn't work, and I'm now waiting for a hospital appointment.

Meantime my boss found how I could refer myself to Access to Work and get some help with ergonomic office equipment. They sent a physio to visit me at work to make a workplace assessment. That was last week, and her report should be through any day now. She was very thorough, talked about my job and the work environment and made lots of measurements, and said she will probably recommend a vertical mouse, split keyboard and separate number pad, as well as a deeper chair, because I'm tall and the seat pan on mine is too shallow. Re. the mice, she mentioned two types - the Evoluent Vertical Mouse and the Quill Grip-Less Mouse. You can find both if you Google them. They're not cheap, but Access to Work can provide grants for your employer towards the cost.

She did also say not to use wrist rests. Latest research is that we tend to get lazy and use them when we're typing/mousing when, in fact, they're only designed for actually resting on. What they do, apparently, is to further compress the nerves and blood vessels in your wrist. What we should be doing are exercises to strengthen the wrist.