Alternative mice

[sluggobear]

Anyone have any "hands-on" experience with alternative mice?

Been having some strain on my thumb.  So far I've been using a Futuro Thumb Stabilizer, which helps a bit.

I've been looking at the 3M Renaissance, SmartCat Glidepoint, Quill, GoldTouch, Contour PMOXLR XL, Contour Design and maybe even SmartNav.

I tried the Humanscale Whale mouse, but couldn

Comments

Re: I have

[sluggobear]

**giggle!!**

[sluggobear]

Very helpful, thank you!

I am leaning towards the Gliderpoint. You get finger cramping with that too, eh?

Maybe I should trade-off and do both mouse and Gliderpoint to mix things up.

[sluggobear]

Awesome... thanks bud!

[sparkygearhead]

Out of curiosity, why are you eliminating trackballs from your quest? I know it violates two of your rules, but I like my Logitech MarbleMouse so much I bought one for home and for work. I do CAD work for a living, and I'm on the computer for probably 8 hours a day. I've been using Trackballs in one form or another for 15 years and I love 'em.

[sluggobear]

Do you turn the trackball with your thumb?

I used a trackball for awhile, and it made my thumb cramp even worse than the mouse. :-(

[zacwolfdotcom]

I have to agree here on the trackball issue...

{sigh} yet another, silly Zac, pulling shit out of his ass post...

I will be willing to bet that your issue isn't ultimately with specific strain on your thumb, but is instead a symptom of the overall over utilization of many parts of your hand and arm.

A mouse puts long term, nearly simultaneous, strain on all or "large groups" of the tissues of the entire arm, as basically a mouse leverages several muscles and nerves, in large group, involved in "fine detail" movements. Taken individually, the movements seem trivial, but taken as a whole and over time, the weakest link will often "give".

For example, through some feat of bad engineering that doesn't bode well for those that believe in "Intelligent Design", the human hand has a bone with a hook-like process that can actually physically damage a nerve that runs along this process. This happens, primarily, when surrounding tissues, muscle and tendons, are placed under simultaneous use (which evolutionary theory says is "unnatural"

[sluggobear]

I think you're definitely right... the thumb is not the real problem. I've been reading a lot about repetitive stress too. Crazy stuff!

I had a trackball, but I couldn't use it for more than an hour... I'm clumsy too, and that made tracking maddeningly inaccurate for me.

Also I find significant relief when my thumb can stay stretched outward instead of grasping or moving.

As for the bigger picture... I read a book called "It's Not Carpal Tunnel..." with information about RSI. it had some interesting points, though some of it was based only on theory. It also got off on some unncessary tangents. But it's main premise was compelling... I will try to blog more about it soon!

[sluggobear]

You can't get it, you can only CATCH it from a COMPUTER!

[zell777]

I tried the Quill before, I would NOT recommend it. It is bulky, cheap (nasty plastic), and it is hard to control (wired, and since your hand is so stuck in there, you can't use your fingers to carefully move the mouse, you can only do big motions with the whole arm). Oh, and it only works on one side too, which sucks if you wanna switch arms.

If you find the perfect incredible solution, let me know! For now I'm just using a regular mouse with my left hand (the right arm hurts after a while), and two Ergo-Rests that help but aren't that great really, they just look neat.

[sluggobear]

Thanks for the tips!

I will post here if I find anything earth-shattering.