Wrist/hand pain: coping and solutions

[my butt is erect]

I have very obvious earlys signs of, or am in early stages of carpal tunnel. And I'm sure many of you do too. I've basically been a 6-10+ hour a day gamer most of my life so it's not surprising. Surely if 75% of the topics here aren't even about the game anymore, we should be able to discuss this since many of us vets will have this issue? This is for the good of people unlike most of the other topics.

What have you found to help with or reverse the damage beyond playing less?

So far I've tried:
- Hand stretches. The basics of it is regularly stretching your fingers outward as well as your actual wrist. Do reps of this.
- Rice bucket training. Look up techniques, but basically you shove your hand into a bucket of rice or sand and do various movements against the resistance of the rice.
- Vertical mouse.

I think all have these helped a bit. Though if I'm slacking then the problem comes back very fast. If you have specific hardware or tips Id like to hear it right from the source - veteran mouse gamers who have damaged their hands just like me.

[Spartykins]

aim with arm

wrist rest or a mousepad with one built in

one of those wrist guard things that I can't recall the name of?

get a lighter mouse or turn sensitivity up

[Hell-met]

having gone through this terrible ordeal myself, looking up for, buying and trying a million things in vain, im afraid the only viable solution is to reduce playtime.

[my butt is erect]

Messaggio originale di Hell-met:

having gone through this terrible ordeal myself, looking up for, buying and trying a million things in vain, im afraid the only viable solution is to reduce playtime.

The sad, likely mostly complete truth. Im generally convinced diligently keeping up with the harm reduction stuff above will help, but not compete with simply playing less.

[Hell-met]

it is very difficult to accept that all things must have an end.

please watch for symptoms of depression because it caught me good and I wouldn't wish that on anyone

[Kevin Crabcakes]

Use your feet and toes

[76561198011134950]

Stop playing games constantly and go outside lmao

[among us balls]

Messaggio originale di poongoolie (rip heavy crew):

I've basically been a 6-10+ hour a day gamer most of my life

Yeah you really got to cut back on that man, the only way to avoid repetitive strain injuries is to stop the repetitive strain.

[fnv]

10 hours a day? jesus christ man go outside

[Bob]

Uhhh... I never had any of this.

Idk, I guess console players keep winning

[The deadly Cutsman]

Have you considered switching to controller or maybe playing another game? If you're constantly getting wrist pain then you shouldn't be forcing your wrist anymore, you could cause serious damage to yourself.

[my butt is erect]

For reference I'm 33. True, I think it does help to play some controller games between mouse sessions. Of course in many situations it's a pretty intense downgrade to change to controller and suddenly be trash. But I expect hand/wrist and especially eye problems will be an epidemic in coming generations, so be warned.

Well thanks, looks like I should just keep up my exercises but mostly just try to limit mouse. We'll see if I can manage. That's a hard habit to change as I've always been a computery nerd guy so even when I wasn't gaming I'd usually be on the computer.

I do recommend those rice bucket exercises for similar people. Keep up with it and it does seem significant.

[Freqsync]

years playing to recover from......
continued aggravation?
Learned bad habits.

One thing to break through attempt force limb through quasi-membrane.
Another to train to do the wrong thing for so long.

Pain is gonna mental block proper repairs. Mind a philosophy.( yet apparently that is gonna be done wrong) don't do this then.
Removal from environment is suggested. carrot horse is allergic to, guide with physical sound(whip cracks, stirup jars) Go with this either begin to go rake or whip and blood pump withbody position motion mainly)


If your unable then a huge buildup is neccessary consult a Kinesiology, Doctor of Physical Therapy
, guitarists/pianists, people who play tons of hours on STEAM, Pizza tossers. If your expecting to kung fu, google fu or something a spectacular recovery....... most that occurs to is those who been training to recovery that quickly.


Simple would be the hardest, break it again until it heals proper.(yeah definitely don't do this)

Complicated simplicity, follow the smart phone alarm system. Place (save zones) in your day you just save yourself from doing this to extreme. Follow how many alarms and countdowns can do and just do it. Find those chimes that stunt your growth into harming oneself.

[AdahnGorion]

Take breaks, sit in a proper positions (and change them) use wrist only or go arm style. don´t do middle ground.
Be sure to be active during breaks as well, take ie. a 30 min bike tour after 2 hours of gameplay. (where you had 5 mins break after an hour to get water, cool your eyes etc)

[Caldari Ghost]

you can just hang your arm straight down, but this kind of goes hand in hand with taking breaks and playing less.

[gugnihr]

If you play using a gamepad I strongly recommend to you (to anybody who plays using gamepads in fact) to turn off vibrations.
I had to turn off vibration after a few years after they were introduced because my hands and wirsts started to hurt really badly with them. After I stopped using this feature the situation became A LOT better almost immediately.
It was rather scary because not only it was painful, I even felt like my hands had a lot less strenght than normal. But as soon as I stopped using the vibration feature everything went back to normal again.