For the last couple of weeks or so, my right hand/wrist has been in pain - not “excruciating” pain, to be sure, but enough to warrant some concern. My livelihood largely revolves around my ability to type quickly on a keyboard. It hasn’t been getting better on its own, even though I often wear a wrist brace and try to use it as little as possible.
Around a week ago, it got so bad that I made a trip to the emergency room (my primary physician couldn’t see me) to get it looked at. They took some X-rays and found nothing of concern, so they told me to take pain killers and sent me on my way.
A week later, it hurts even more - it’s getting to the point where it’s painful to do routine things with my right hand, such as open doors or twist bottle caps (it’s not so painful that I can’t smack someone around, so those of you with a snarky “what you do routinely with your right hand” joke on deck should take notice).
When I first noticed this pain several months back, I got a new ergonomic keyboard and trackball for work. That helped some, until this most recent recurrance. I’ve also taken other steps - installing macro software such as Textpander and writing/using commonly used canned messages - but this is not always of great utility as I deal with a variety of things during the day.
Anyhow, this is mostly just bitching on my part. I’m continuing to make changes to accomdate my gimpy hand, and hope that it will get better soon.
If it’s feasible in your setup you might want to try changing the height of your desk to change the angle your wrist ends up bending as you reach for the keyboard and mouse.
Awhile back I was starting to get some wrist pain (but not nearly as bad as what you’ve described) and lowering my desk a little and then raising my display to compensate pretty much made the pain go away. I still have to be careful and occasionally get some wrist or hand pain but it’s rare now.