I too, encountered crippling RSI pain, and eventually switched to a kinesis keyboard (http://www.kinesis-ergo.com). While the keyboards are crazy expensive, and a bit flaky, they completely cured my carpal tunnel.
The downside is, I'm now stuck hauling around this weird, non-standard keyboard. :)
Same here. Had nasty pains in both wrists and tried a lot of things until I finally purchased a Kinesis (the current model is this one: http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/advantage_pro.htm ) and a Kensington Epert Mouse trackball. I had to learn to type again, but am now faster and completely pain-free for about 6 years.
Very similar experience here; bought myself a Kinesis for home and one for work (I'm sure they'd have paid for it, but I couldn't be bothered). It was quite possibly the best $600 I've ever spent. I don't mouse enough to have yet bothered with the trackball, but perhaps I'll get one to try it out.
The only downside I've found (other than cost, which is a non-issue IMO) is that you get very used to the keyboard and now when I go to a conference room or someplace else with normal keyboards, I might as well be typing with my elbows.
I have to put my vote in for the Kinesis Advantage as well. For anyone reading this that might be on the fence about the cost, you will not be disappointed. I was suffering from excruciating pain in my forearms, wrists and fingers. That pain disappeared almost as soon as I started using the Kinesis. For me, the big difference is having a wide split between home rows. This keeps my arms almost completely parallel and alleviates the forearm pain. The key layout is a little funky at first, but what I have realized is that each individual key is positioned exactly where your fingers naturally curl and extend. The other change I made was to add a trackball. I keep the trackball on the left and my regular mouse on the right and switch up usage as often as I can.
I've actually never had any serious problems with my wrists, and sometimes I think that starting playing piano as a young kid, along with my guitar today, and with regular trips to the swimming pool and daily bike commute, helps keeping my wrists strong and pain free.
I've been using a kinesis freestyle keyboard for about a year, and before that a series of regular chepo 102 keys, but the possibility of having my hands apart a longer distance keeps my wrists more relaxed and overall I get a better body posture.
I think most of the problems other people have come from the latter: my elbows are on top of the table, which means my keyboard is farther away than what I see other people using and so I'm in a very relaxed position. The ubiquity of laptop's small keyboards certainly doesn't help either.
Because they're close enough to the regular keyboards, while offering both the split (match natural forearm angle) and the tilt (match natural forearm rotation) to better align natural wrist position.
I also like that they ditch the numeric keyboad, so I can put the Kensington ExpertMouse just to the right of the return key and not have to move my hand as far.
I did the exact opposite--one time I came across a very cheap keyboard with the keys wobbly and floppy. Was a relief to my hands.
Since then, as long as I used standalone keyboards I bought cheap keyboards where the situation of my fingertips hitting the key caps was that the caps evaded my fingers a little and required some kind-of adjusting of my finger movements to the individual key once my fingertips hit the key in question.
I guess the added movement helped to relax my fingers.
Comments
I too, encountered crippling RSI pain, and eventually switched to a kinesis keyboard (http://www.kinesis-ergo.com). While the keyboards are crazy expensive, and a bit flaky, they completely cured my carpal tunnel.
The downside is, I'm now stuck hauling around this weird, non-standard keyboard. :)
Same here. Had nasty pains in both wrists and tried a lot of things until I finally purchased a Kinesis (the current model is this one: http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/advantage_pro.htm ) and a Kensington Epert Mouse trackball. I had to learn to type again, but am now faster and completely pain-free for about 6 years.
Very similar experience here; bought myself a Kinesis for home and one for work (I'm sure they'd have paid for it, but I couldn't be bothered). It was quite possibly the best $600 I've ever spent. I don't mouse enough to have yet bothered with the trackball, but perhaps I'll get one to try it out.
The only downside I've found (other than cost, which is a non-issue IMO) is that you get very used to the keyboard and now when I go to a conference room or someplace else with normal keyboards, I might as well be typing with my elbows.
I keep a kinesis at work and a standard keyboard at home. Now I'm so used to using both that I can type just as fast on either one.
I have to put my vote in for the Kinesis Advantage as well. For anyone reading this that might be on the fence about the cost, you will not be disappointed. I was suffering from excruciating pain in my forearms, wrists and fingers. That pain disappeared almost as soon as I started using the Kinesis. For me, the big difference is having a wide split between home rows. This keeps my arms almost completely parallel and alleviates the forearm pain. The key layout is a little funky at first, but what I have realized is that each individual key is positioned exactly where your fingers naturally curl and extend. The other change I made was to add a trackball. I keep the trackball on the left and my regular mouse on the right and switch up usage as often as I can.
I've actually never had any serious problems with my wrists, and sometimes I think that starting playing piano as a young kid, along with my guitar today, and with regular trips to the swimming pool and daily bike commute, helps keeping my wrists strong and pain free.
I've been using a kinesis freestyle keyboard for about a year, and before that a series of regular chepo 102 keys, but the possibility of having my hands apart a longer distance keeps my wrists more relaxed and overall I get a better body posture.
I think most of the problems other people have come from the latter: my elbows are on top of the table, which means my keyboard is farther away than what I see other people using and so I'm in a very relaxed position. The ubiquity of laptop's small keyboards certainly doesn't help either.
I'm partial to the GoldTouch keyboards:
http://www.goldtouch.com/p-133-goldtouch-for-mac-adjustable-...
Because they're close enough to the regular keyboards, while offering both the split (match natural forearm angle) and the tilt (match natural forearm rotation) to better align natural wrist position.
I also like that they ditch the numeric keyboad, so I can put the Kensington ExpertMouse just to the right of the return key and not have to move my hand as far.
I switched to an ErgoLogic keyboard (no longer made but looks like this: http://www.emailbattles.com/2006/04/24/other_aadehidhca_ia/) which had keypads that can be rotated vertically. My wrists were much happier after that. I detailed my efforts battling a bad case of RSI here: http://blog.chromarati.com/2010/04/rsi-my-problem-child-10-t...
I did the exact opposite--one time I came across a very cheap keyboard with the keys wobbly and floppy. Was a relief to my hands.
Since then, as long as I used standalone keyboards I bought cheap keyboards where the situation of my fingertips hitting the key caps was that the caps evaded my fingers a little and required some kind-of adjusting of my finger movements to the individual key once my fingertips hit the key in question.
I guess the added movement helped to relax my fingers.