Help with set up.

[jsw]

I've been having hand/wrist trouble for awhile now. I made the mistake of taking a labour job for a few weeks in the summer that included scrapping floors before they could be sanded, at the same time I did this I switched my layout to programmer dvorak. I think part of my problem is that I'm actually touch typing now compared to before where I was mostly touch typing. I've alleviated a lot of my bad typing habits, like bending my wrists towards the shift keys, and now I only shift with the opposite hand.

Both pinky finger are crooked and have been broken multiple times without being set correctly, my left pinky is broken below the knuckle and has healed leaving my pinky to point outwards. I think that previously I only used my pinkies for shift and now I'm using my pinkies more often. My doctor wants me to go to physio(and I will), but I think my pinkies are bad enough they need to be rebroken. They both deviate inwards towards my thumbs when I make a fist but are stuck outwards away from my thumbs when I extend my fingers. My right hand hasn't been broken as bad as my left, but my right pinky deviates inwards more than my left does, I think this is because of the way I hold my trackball, my pinky rests on the table while the rest of my fingers rest on the trackball itself.

I'm waiting to hear back from Kineses, I emailed them about purchasing their advantage pro. Currently I'm using an apple bluetooth keyboard, at one point I was using a keyboard with mx greens, which I enjoyed, but everyone complained about the noise. I'm going to get browns with my advantage pro. this is my trackball http://cdn.cnetcontent.com/9d/f1/9df14d1b-9b11-4f65-8e09-1e83b317025a.jpg

I'm wondering if anyone has experience with hand injuries that aren't caused by typing but are worsened by typing. Should I give up on my pinkies and figure something else out? i know with the advantage pro I'm not going to use my pinkies for as much for elevated keys, but I think I might be forced to use my pinkies where before with a normal 60% keyboard you can get away with 3 finger typing.

I use the trackball for gaming, which I think is a big factor to my bad hands/wrists. My right hand is far more sore than my left, and like I mentioned I've injured my left far more in the past. I can get a camera and take some pictures of my hands. When I was suggested to buy a trackball over a mouse I was told to get one that worked with both fingers and thumbs, and I didn't listen. My current trackball feels comfortable, but I constantly am rolling my index finger inwards towards my palms while left clicking mobs in my game. **note** I've stopped gaming completely, which has helped.

I've been reading threads here now for the past few months, really seems to be some great people here. Any tips/suggestions would be great.

[pnutster]

In a different situation, don't have injuries on hands/fingers, however I think I can comment on certain aspects in your post and hopefully that is helpful to you.

As for touch-typing. Previously was in your situation: I didn't touch type and needed to touch-type. That certainly did not make my pain less. It most certainly aggravated the pain in the beginning, to become less painful after getting more accustomed to touch typing. Your case may be similar, perhaps give it some time to get used to the touch-typing.

Now while you are talking about the Kinesis Advantage Pro, that comes with a single foot-pedal that can act as your shift key (or any key you want). That I can imagine would possibly be a very good solution for you to take away using your pinkies too much. Perhaps even think of a dual / triple pedal?

Your trackball setup: Perhaps think of a trackpad setup? I switch them up, 1 month trackball and 1 month trackpad.

[Oobly]

I think you should consider getting something with a fairly "normal" layout, but a split spacebar or more thumb keys. This will allow you to use your thumb for Shift while allowing you to "float" your hands over the board and type all the other characters with the other 3 fingers of each hand (index, middle and ring). That will alleviate the use of your pinkies, so you can actually not use them at all any more for typing.

As you head to more "ergonomic" keyboards, they tend to be designed for people with full use of all fingers, but designed in such a way as to prevent causing injury in normal use. For a pre-existing injury that is not caused by typing, a normal ergonomic solution may not be ideal. For instance, the Kinesis Advantage Pro will require that you use your pinkies for some characters if typing "properly" (although you could ignore correct "touch typing" technique and move your hands a bit when typing to allow your ring finger to hit most of the pinkie key characters) and it also reduces the muscles used when typing to primarily the fingers and forearms. A normal layout board is both more familiar and easier to float around over so you can use the "wrong" fingers for certain characters.

Learning to touch type "properly" on a normal QWERTY board (keeping fingers on the home row and returning them there after every stroke) is, IMHO, going to lead to more injury down the line, even for a person with no prior injuries.

Your wrists should be as straight as possible when typing (in both axes), a slight open twist is fine (thumb side up a little, pinkie side down a little). This leads to a position with the wrists raised off of any support and hands that angle in to the keyboard so if your index fingers rest on F and J (U and H for Programemr Dvorak) then the others will rest in an arc something like AWE (A,.) and IO; (CRS), thumbs on the spacebar.

Unfortunately there are not a lot of split spacebar boards available, but the next best thing is a board with thumb keys like the ErgoDox or Advantage. I think if you adjust your technique to prevent the use of your pinkies unless / until they're "fixed" a bit, then you should be able to type well without pain.

I'm not sure a pedal will help much, it's a lot slower and requires more coordination and training to use since you have to engage the foot motor neurons as well as the hand / arm / fingers and get them synchronised. Easy enough for a drummer, but takes some practice if you're not used to it and I think it's more useful for those with "serious" hand injuries that slow down / prevent normal typing with the fingers / thumbs enough to make it worthwhile.

[tp4tissue]

you don't need your pinky to be honest


it's easily possible to use the ring finger for all pinky keys.. 

Move the A key to Q key   this way you can make up the difference in efficiency as A is used far more often.

[Oobly]

you don't need your pinky to be honest


it's easily possible to use the ring finger for all pinky keys.. 

Move the A key to Q key   this way you can make up the difference in efficiency as A is used far more often.

 

[nomaded]

With that trackball (Logitech Trackman Cordless), I have found that if I use my index finger for most of the movement of the ball, after a little while of game playing (FPSes in my case), the joints of my index finger would ache. I have trained myself to use my middle and ring fingers for the ball movement. My hand is less sore from lots of gaming.

I recently switched to a Kensington Slimblade (the trackball not the mouse), and the change in hand orientation is a nice break. I mostly use my middle and ring fingers, more towards the palm of the hand for ball control. The only drawback, for me, is that the Slimblade has a lot fewer buttons, and really only one of them is easy to hit with my thumb. I haven't had time to try any games with it, yet.

Good luck.