[pabloarteel]

Around that topic of ergonomic tools, I've been wanting to try a vertical mouse.

As a designer, my right hand is over the mouse a lot of the time. I have a chronic pain on my right wirst, although, I not certain of the cause.

Anyone her has experience with this?

[fpgaminer]

Different things work for different people. Your only real option is to try all the options and see what works best for you personally. Luckily for wrist pain, the options are all cheap. Things to try:

Vertical mouse or trackball; they're all fine, you can get a "nice" one after finding what works first.

Wrist braces.

Wrist stretches.

Exercise; most weightlifting will improve your grip strength which helps some people.

Ergonomic chair; pain in the wrist can sometimes be caused by issues in the shoulder, which often result from a poorly placed arm rest. This is hard to notice as your shoulder might feel fine. Worth double checking.

Reduce stress; some amount of wrist pain can be caused by mental stress which results in tension and blood flow problems.

Laptop; your desktop environment might be great, but maybe you use a laptop too, and you're slowly destroying your wrists on its tiny form factor.

[elteto]

Same here. The vertical mouse has helped a lot. I've tried a few and settled on the one I liked the most. You should definitely give it a try. Be aware that it will take you a couple of days to adjust, just stick with it.

[sdfin]

Some months ago I was feeling some pain in my right wrist, and by buying and using a vertical mouse the pain ceased.

Right now my belief is that non-vertical mice are badly designed and I see no reason to use a non vertical one again.

[mleonhard]

Switching to a vertical mouse cleared up my arm pain. I tried many vertical mice. Evoluent's wired vertical mouse has been my favorite since 2009. Each new version is essentially the same, just with different surface finishes.

Years later, I got wrist pain in both hands. Switching to a tenting keyboard solved it. I've used the GoldTouch V2 for 7 years now.

Do not try 3M's vertical mouse with the thumb button. I used it for a few months and developed severe pain in my thumb. Fifteen years have passed and my thumb still occasionally clicks when I bend it, due to that injury.

[denimnerd42]

Yeah I found the Evoluent to be perfect for me. I actually had to give up mousing with my right wrist as it got too badly damaged. So now I use my left hand with a vertical mouse. Was an interesting transition period.

I think you will notice a loss of precision though. For example I could never play an FPS at my best with a vertical mouse. But for $80-100 definitely worth a try for your health.

[nunez]

Absolutely love them. Won’t ever go back to a regular mouse if I can avoid it.

[teamonkey]

A vertical mouse, combined with a wrist and elbow brace helped me immensely, where a trackpad or thumb-ball made my RSI much worse. Even just a cheap one is an improvement, but the more vertical the tilt, the better. The one I use now is the one that's rebranded by half a dozen suppliers on Amazon.

The thing that's hard to remember with a vertical mouse (and mice in general) is that you're supposed to move your arm, not your wrist. Getting used to that was more of an issue than the orientation of the mouse.

[benhurmarcel]

I tried the Anker Vertical Mouse, the Logitech Vertical, the Evoluent VerticalMouse 4, the Logitech Ergo (trackball), and Logitech M370 (trackball).

In the end my favorite is the Logitech Ergo with the "Plus" stand. The version that includes the stand is only sold in the US so I imported 2 of them. I got rid of all the others.

[ekianjo]

Vertical mouse is great. I used to have wrist pain after long hours of work but now its much better with the vertical mouse.

[ahelwer]

Mice, as in things you drag across a desk surface, are a complete dead end ergonomically. Trackballs are the answer. I like the Kensington vertical trackball. The only thing that moves is your thumb. Those small precise wrist movements kill you.

[coryrc]

I moved to a trackball, a large one. Made my wrist hurt after a ~week, so I went back to a regular mouse (which has never caused me pain) or, my favorite, using the trackpoint (but unless I want to shell out crazy money and wait a while can't get a split keyboard version, so it's only when using the machine away from my desk).

[yellowapple]

Seconded. I'm partial to Logitech's MX Ergo; I feel like fully vertical is a bit of an overcorrection, whereas the Ergo lets my hand rest diagonally, which feels a fair bit more natural and comfortable. Bought one on a whim for work, and I've enjoyed it enough that I bought a second one when I switched jobs this year.

[perlpimp]

tbh magic mouse pad with three finger drag has transformed my interaction with computer and Cooler Master master keys M(that they don't make anymore) given me numpad and cursor keys and navigation/edit keys very close. It is like 1/2 more ergonomic this way.