I had annoying pain in my wrists for several years then after about 5 years of this annoyance it turned to feeling like my wrist had been stabbed with a knife after only a minute of mouse use on any given day. My career as a labview programmer was done with. I nevertheless researched solutions as I was not going to give up easily. I found that my wrist pain was related almost entirely due to the angle of twist I was holding my hand at to use a mouse. Ideally a mouse that would allow me to hold my hand vertically vs horizontally was the solution. Even trackballs could not do that. I even switched mouse hands and the other wrist became inflamed within a day so it was not just time of irritation. It seems that holding the write palm down actually subtley compresses the nerves going through the wrist-palm area whereas a verticle position opens up that channel.
I did however recall one colleague who was using a Wacom tablet. I dismissed it at the time as having an annoying feel. However I was desperate and willing to try something else. The pen allowed me to hold my hand vertical (as in the way one shakes a hand in greeting vs palm down to the table). So my total down time to wrist pain was really only about 3 days. The tablet feel is different it is not an equal exchange from a mouse however the great increase in dexterity over a mouse really made a wonderful improvement. The change from mousing to pen tablet allowed me to get up and coding in LabVIEW again almost immediately I have now been using a Wacom tablet for 4 years. My wrist has become somewhat less sensitive so that I could go for a day with a mouse if I had to. However I have found that using the high resolution tablets speed up my LabVIEW programming considerably over a mouse. So now even if I did not have wrist issues I would stick with the tablet as a simply superior interface device, especially for LabVIEW graphical programming. I am also an artist so the visual graphics appeal of the tablet was somewhat more interesting to me. I purchased an Intuos 3 tablet (I don't recall the exact dimensions, a medium size) which overall is about the same footprint as a laptop and I carry with me whereever my laptop goes. I purchased the lowest level wacom table at first because I saw it as a risky investment and because that was all that was available at BestBuy off the shelf, I then upgraded to the high resolution Intuos. LabVIEW requires intensive mouse use and I highly recommend a tablet for any LV programmer regardless of wrist issues.
The source of my wrist problems is unclear. I believe it is related to a general "inflamation" problem in my joints and tendons and I suspect it is related to sugar and blood sugar issues and age.I have found that a lot walking and minimizing sugar helps. The problem with inflammation as I have experienced it, is that it seems to be a runnaway problem so minimizing irritants ASAP was critical. Also I found wrist guards to be an irritant as well as keyboard pads. My wrist had become so sensitive that I could not wear a wrist watch nor rest my arm on an arm rest. I also remove arm rests from my office chairs. I also try to keep my forarm horizontal when working.
And for what it is worth I also tried out a "twitter" one handed keyboard , pen tablet for one hand and keyboard for the other which I liked especially for LV work, but found the reliability was poor and the cost was high. The advantage was the I could hold my hand and arm at any position, even hanging down or behind my back for typing thus relieving anystess.
Question now is has anybody had any experience with the new Wacom Bamboo?
Thanks
