It sounds like you feel like you've tried *everything*, and that you think it's time to really consider the last resort.
Like most people who have posted here, I don't like the idea of invasive surgery. I acknowledge that there's a chance you do need surgery (I'm sure your doctors think so), but I just want you to consider one thing:
PLEASE don't make the final decision until your hands have had a significant rest!
It's easy to decide you need surgery when you're feeling at your worst. But the body DOES recover if you give it a chance -- what if you take a month off, and you find that you've recovered enough that you don't need surgery anymore? What if the damage/scarring that your doctors are calling "permanent" wasn't so permanent, or wasn't as bad as they made it out to be?
I understand that there are financial considerations that keep you working. But you need to do what's right for your body, because you're going to live with this decision the rest of your life. Take a month off and don't touch a keyboard; find another job that doesn't strain your wrists; and THEN make your decision. Maybe you'll still feel horrible and you'll realize that you did need to have surgery all along; but it shouldn't hurt to wait.
Ditto on the Kinesis keyboard. Here's another thing to try:
Place a Kensington Orbit trackball in the blank area in the center (between the two sets of keys). That way you can can: 1) use one hand to click and the other to move the ball 2) re-map the left and right buttons whenever one hand is getting tired from clicking (which doesn't happen to me much anymore). A lot of mouse/trackball strain comes from having to use one finger to click and the other to drag -- having to execute two movements with the same hand makes the motion more complicated and tense, contributing to CTS.
A Logitech Marble Mouse trackball works just as well (and lasts longer because it's optical rather than mechanical).
Slashdot Mirror
Kyrrin,
It sounds like you feel like you've tried *everything*, and that you think it's time to really consider the last resort.
Like most people who have posted here, I don't like the idea of invasive surgery. I acknowledge that there's a chance you do need surgery (I'm sure your doctors think so), but I just want you to consider one thing:
PLEASE don't make the final decision until your hands have had a significant rest!
It's easy to decide you need surgery when you're feeling at your worst. But the body DOES recover if you give it a chance -- what if you take a month off, and you find that you've recovered enough that you don't need surgery anymore? What if the damage/scarring that your doctors are calling "permanent" wasn't so permanent, or wasn't as bad as they made it out to be?
I understand that there are financial considerations that keep you working. But you need to do what's right for your body, because you're going to live with this decision the rest of your life. Take a month off and don't touch a keyboard; find another job that doesn't strain your wrists; and THEN make your decision. Maybe you'll still feel horrible and you'll realize that you did need to have surgery all along; but it shouldn't hurt to wait.
Ditto on the Kinesis keyboard. Here's another thing to try:
Place a Kensington Orbit trackball in the blank area in the center (between the two sets of keys). That way you can can:
1) use one hand to click and the other to move the ball
2) re-map the left and right buttons whenever one hand is getting tired from clicking (which doesn't happen to me much anymore).
A lot of mouse/trackball strain comes from having to use one finger to click and the other to drag -- having to execute two movements with the same hand makes the motion more complicated and tense, contributing to CTS.
A Logitech Marble Mouse trackball works just as well (and lasts longer because it's optical rather than mechanical).