Ambidextrous Mouse Handling

It had never occurred to me that one could start seeing signs of carpal tunnel due to mouse use. I had always assumed that it was restricted to people who typed a lot, like secretaries or data entry clerks.

About 7 or 8 years ago, I started to play a video game called Diablo. This highly addicting game required a ludicrous amount of clicking of the mouse to play. It was even a common joke in gaming circles that the game was making companies that made mice extremely wealthy. After playing this game in excess month after month, I started to notice a slight discomfort radiating up from my right index finger knuckle up to my wrist and a little beyond. Not wanting to cause myself damage, I promptly ended my nightly hack-and-slash fest to let my hand/wrist recover. Within a week or two, the discomfort went away and did not return - not even when Diablo 2 came out.

That all changed about a week ago when I started to feel the familiar discomfort again. This time it was more pronounced and actually started to hurt even when I wasn't using the computer. Needless to say, I was concerned and I decided to swap my mouse from the right side of my keyboard to the left hand and started using it. So far this seems to have helped. I don't really feel any pain when I type, but I sometimes feel discomfort when I click with my right hand (at home the mouse is still on the right). I regularly stretch it out and massage my forearm, wrist and hand as often as I can. It seems to be helping. I hope I caught it soon enough, before any major damage was done.

It feels pretty good now (I'm typing this from work) and I have to say that I'm getting used to mousing with my "dumb" hand. At first it felt clumsy, despite the fact that I have decent manual dexterity, but I was able to move my cursor directly to where I wanted to all day today. I'm not sure it's accurate enough for me to switch while gaming, but I've cut back on my gaming habits quite a bit for this very reason. We'll see what happens.

This entry was brought to you by the Plankton Preservation Society of the Greater Phoenix Metropolitan Area.