Mouse causing hand wrist pain

[McNistor]

Quote

so that the lowest button on your pen is a middle click, and your upper button is a right click

Better to switch these two, since RMB is used more often and the lower button is more accessible.

[ikoon]

I have my wacom set the same as McNistor said. From the bottom: LMB, RMB, MMB.

When I drag with MMB (the most top button on the pen) I feel more confident when holding the pen with middle finger and index finger. I press MMB with my thumb.

Btw I have set the mouse similar way ... three buttons from the left: LMB, RMB, MMB. So I switched rmb and mmb on the mouse. It feels better for my muscle memory.

[Thomas Helzle]

Wacom in Mouse mode is pretty bad imo, worse than a mouse because of the limited area.

The main advantage of the whole tablet/pen system is, that it's an absolute position, so you can directly move to a location on the screen without "walking the distance".

Wacom has pretty bad drivers, if yours don't work right, try updating or downdating to older ones, trashing the settings, uninstall/reinstall and I think they have an explicit uninstaller that checks for left-behinds. (not sure if I remember that correctly). 
Considering that they are the number one high-end tablet maker, it's quite embarrassing how crappy their drivers are (and how flimsy the pens have become).

On Windows 95 with the serial tablet, the pointer was totally nailed to the pen, no latency or lag at all. But since Windows NT, the driver is much less close to the hardware and so there always is a bit of a latency involved. Not much anymore (at least if Windows Ink is disabled) but still it's not as direct as it used to be 25 years ago. When Windows Ink came out with W8, I went crazy with up to several seconds lag when trying to move a scrollbar and stuff like that.
Thankfully they listened to the users after some months and implemented the way to disable it in the driver.

I never tried it, but there also is the airbrush-pen. It has a wheel IIRC but I'm not sure if it works like a mousewheel ... May be worth a try.
But with the Houdini value ladders, I don't miss it at all. And yes, the upper button for MM is a pretty good setting.
Using the side buttons with the index finger here - can't even remember if it ever was a problem :-) 
But a mouse, now THAT is clumsy as hell and middle clicking with the wheel drives me bonkers ;-)

Cheers,

Tom

[bobc4d]

this thread is terrific. I had not thought of using a Wacom instead of mouse.  I found my really old Wacom bamboo and really like it, much easier on wrist. it is taking some getting used to.  I do have one question about buttons on this one.  who much improved is the pen on todays Wacom's compared to my ancient one?  I find the small button sometimes hard to find and press without looking.

[Aydin]

I am using mostly wacom for many years but I started have hand terrible wrist pain about 6 months ago to. While i was searching solutions, i used many things that you can see at photo and some more thing like mouse pad with gel and other soft stuffs but they didnt help me. After a few terrible months , i notice that while i was using wacom or mouse, i am hardly pushing down my elbow to the desk and that cause the my wrist pain. Than i started to use my daughters volleyball knee pads on my elbow. In each day i stated to feel better and about 2 weeks later there was no more pain. After that i tried many knee pads but the best one was my daughter's cheap knee pads. I also attached its photo. I am using it for 3-4 month and i used to it.

Maybe its little different than your problem but i thought that it can help also someone else.

[luoqiulin]

i use my right hand before,ten years ago i switched to my left hand.believe me it's not so hard to use your other hand, you can acclimition it after a week. don't change your mouse setting,then you can adapte any other mouse any time.

[Dubtronics]

Besides the wacom I also recommend doing some Yoga or just some stretching at regular intervals. I also had wrist and shoulder issues and a combination of these things has really helped. If I have to use a mouse I make sure its  a good one with a bit of weight on it.

[willow wafflebeard]

On 3/20/2019 at 11:34 AM, Noobini said:

do you last 'long' in Call of Duty using the Evoluent mouse ?

exactly

Edited June 17, 2019 by willow wafflebeard

[eyeclick]

My two cents, I raised my desk, lean my chair back and lower it, so that my arms lay on the desk and there is no bend to my wrist.  I can work many continuous hours this way.

[eikonoklastes]

It's far less about the input device you use, and significantly more about your desk ergonomics. Your elbow and wrist should always be supported fully, and always on the same plane. If your elbow is lower or higher than your wrist, you're going to have pain.

Also, adjust your seat height so that your wrist doesn't have to angle up or down to use the mouse and keyboard.

If you have a mechanical keyboard, make sure you use a wrist rest to raise your wrists, or else you'll be angling your wrists upwards to reach the keys.

I always use a deep desk, so I can rest my entire forearm on it rather than rely on the arm rest of the chair for my elbow. I used to have wrist pain ages ago (more than 10 years at least), and once I started religiously followed an ergonomic setup, there has not even been a hint of fatigue, let alone any pain.

[ncm]

I found the wrist flexor and extensor stretches shown here to be helpful when I started to get Carpal Tunnel issues in my elbow. There might be a youtube video that better shows how to do them. 

Also--too much League of Legends is NOT helpful. Surprisingly my issues started to pop up after a year of playing a game that involves constant clicking (multiple clicks per second) for 30-45 minutes at a time. Once I put 2 and 2 together and took a break from LoL my issues went away. Just mentioning that because I was dense and the causal relationship between the 2 games didn't occur to me for awhile. 

personally I'll second (or third) the mentions above about good posture and the proper elbow/wrist relationship. If I get lazy and start to lapse on those two things I notice some pain starting to sneak back in. 

[fluentjohn]

True, the type of mouse you use can cause wrist/ hand pain.

I used to experience wrist pain too until I read that the mouse used can cause pain. After then, I changed my mouse type and I haven't had any pain since.

You could check out these articles and see if they help.

https://www.wikihow.com/Relieve-Wrist-Pain

http://ergonomictrends.com/types-of-computer-mice/

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kzyqzv/the-way-you-hold-your-mouse-could-be-causing-wrist-pain

 

[muzhili]

I think how much you use a tablet totally depends on what you do in 3D. If you do a lot of modeling, texture painting, etc then a tablet is a must and will seriously speed up your workflow about 10 times. If you don't do either of these and you just do effects then a tablet won't really help you. So the real question is what are you doing with 3D.

Tablet can also be useful for painting weight maps for rigging, for painting masks for compositing, painting maps for shading, etc. If you are a character animator you won't use it either. I recommend a larger tablet because you won't have to fight with a particular software to get something done you just have your control there and now and don't have to do a ton of zooming. I recommend a XP-Pen Deco Pro  11x6" digital art tablet .

After that they start getting pretty small. I personally would not go below A4 tablet.I prefer to use tablets for everything. Better than a mouse in terms of ergonomic.

[demoncase]

Well, for my experience, using a good mouse and he need to ''fit' in your hand! When I was 14, I started to have some pains as described in the post, after that I never again used a cheap mouse (or a mouse that makes my wrist touch the table, the bottom of my hand must be on air), and the pain never returned! Ergonomics matter a lot! 
As models there's the Microsoft 3.0v2 which I like a lot! 

[Kupotepo67]

XP-PEN graphic tablet . For most of three years.

For the past several years, I've used a standing desk. Keyboard and tablet are just below where my fingers are when I let my arms hang from the shoulder and bend ninety degrees at the elbow. The monitor's on an arm, with its top about level with my eyes when I look straight ahead.

I also keep my wrist largely static as I move the stylus around the tablet; it's mostly done with the action of my arm. I learnt to do this when I worked in the animation industry - when folks speak in terms of "pencil mileage" and mean it quite literally, they learn how to keep the carpal tunnel fairy at bay. You can learn how to do this by grabbing a  pencil and holding it 'sideways', so that the side of the pencil point makes a wide mark on the paper, rather than just the tip making a little mark, then trying to draw stuff. It becomes pretty natural after some practice, and will both give you less wrist pain, and make it easier to vary the pressure on your stylus with conscious control.

I haven't been able to use a mouse for years; my early gigs in the animation world involved Houdini, and huge amounts of frequent double-clicking took their toll on the tendons of my right index finger. I can use one briefly when I absolutely have to but I have to hold it in a weird way such that I left-click with my middle finger; if I forget (and I will if I try using a mouse) my finger starts hurting again quite rapidly. Haven't had any problems with my wrists since switching to the tablet.

Ditch your mouse. Get a XP-PEN drawing tablet and use it for everything. Treat your mouse the same way you would a gamepad: a specialized controller for games designed around it, instead of a general controller for everything about the computer.

[demoncase]

Before I was a FX, I was a gamer ahahaha, and a few tips on the mouse:

The mouse should cover your whole hand, meaning your wrist should not touch the desk! 
Also I always use a right handed mouse, I use the PC for 12 hours a day and never suffered pain on my hands/wrist! Watching the posture, monitor on the line of the eyes and a good chair also makes a lot of difference.

[AlSk]

I'm using a rather small gaming mouse with a higher DPI setting (1350 DPI). I'm controlling it with a Fingertip Grip. Thus I'm not moving my wrist very much. Never had any problems or pain.