"Emacs Pinky": After the damage has been done?

(Disclaimer: I don't use emacs; I just have ulnar nerve entrapment from programming and discovered emacs pinky.) For the past 7 weeks, my pinky and ring finger have been in a constant state of "pins and needles." The onset was gradual but transitioned into being 24/7, though without pain at first. I thought it was from sleeping on my elbow - not an uncommon cause of ulnar nerve entrapment, and my doctor had me change sleeping positions. I'm developing apps full time in dart and spend about 8-12 hours a day programming, 6-7 days a week. And I save, copy, paste, undo, redo, among other shortcuts all day, probably having my pinky hit the left ctrl key 1000 times a day. My typing speed was normally over 160, max 183, on 10fastfingers. Look, I've rebinded left control entirely to left alt. But for some reason, it really hit me today. Suddenly, I was in so much pain that I couldn't bear to hit left ctrl. I'm asking here because I'm hoping someone else has gone through recovery. I can't see a specialist for a couple of months. I'll discontinue using my small finger for shortcuts entirely, but that doesn't help me. I have a job to do now.

Well, a lot of the users here would recommend rebinding caps lock to control. I use Linux and there are quite a few ways to do it here. If you use Windows, Im sure you can use something like autohotkey to easily do it It makes using ctrl so much easier. Dont have pinky pains ever!

I actually made my caps backspace, so it's easier for me to delete the millions of mistakes I make (plus ctrl backspace is really handy). I'm just in pain and wondering how I can speed up recovery as there's no resources on this online.

Switch to a truly ergonomic keyboard. I.e., one that has multiple thumb keys. There are slab like ones such as the Kinesis Advantage, giant splits like the Moonlander, to medium sized ones like the Kyria, and so on to things like the Corne and Ferris. Just taking the first step to get the various modifiers and command keys onto the thumbs instead of around the periphery cured my Emacs pinky. Going further down the rabbit hole adds other things but also other tradeoffs and a larger commitment to the transition.

IMO, having been there years ago, switch left ctrl to caps lock, use both the left pinky and ring finger at the same time. Possibly look into mechanical switches that have low activation forces.

I've not had anything so bad, but have had some issues. First thing to do is check the ergonomics of your entire setup. There are plenty of guides online, and I am not an expert so refer to them. Taking breaks is also vital. Even just moving around a little can help, but getting up and walking around is even better. Other adjustments I've found useful are a split keyboard, but your mileage might vary. There are some stretches and nerve glides which can help, and for some immediate relief try a massage - explain the issue and they might be able to help. It's very possible the issue is actually in your arm, neck or chest. Good luck, and I hope you find some relief.

This! r/ergomechkeyboards is a wonderful entrance to said rabbit hole.

As a physiotherapist I would suggest you speed up by slowing down. As soon as you are feeling the slightest pain over tiredness you should take a break. Spend some time to rethink how you work and when you hand is in a bad position. Is it possible to relax more when working? Often i find myself in a position where all my muscles are activated for no reason and the I spend a few seconds to get my shoulders down, reset hands and try to relax. I saw you set caps for backspace instead of Ctrl. You might want to rethink that because Ctrl puts more strain on your hand than backspace does. Again, rethink your workflow. There might be a lot of gains through just actually sitting down and looking at what you are doing all day. I often tweak my workflow and some times it slows me down and some musclememory die hard, but of you are moving in a better direction then you are improving. One thing is for sure, the path you are on right now will only make it worse :)

I have struggled a bit with this. Even with using caps lock as ctrl I have had some pain on long days. My latest solution is a split space bar mechanical keyboard. I use my left thumb as control. My brain adjusted fairly quickly. I recommend giving that a try.

Thanks for the advice. I'm sure I'm tense while working. The pain had an almost sudden onset today, which is most concerning. I have a wrist brace and finger splint right now. > I saw you set caps for backspace instead of Ctrl. You might want to rethink that because Ctrl puts more strain on your hand than backspace does. I made alt my ctrl key, so I don't have to use my pinky at all; I can use my thumb. But I'll make adjustments as I go.

I have "recovered" from from basically what you are describing. It still comes back from time to time but its maintainable and i can continue to work as a developer. Here are my tips. 1. You are risking having to switch careers or go through surgery so take it seriously 2. Take a break for a week or two. Ask your manager if you can get non keyboard work to do while recovering (full time pair programming co-driver is your best bet) otherwise sick leave. 3. Get a ergonomic keyboard, so that you can keep your wrists straight at all times. I find mechanical ones with large keytravel makes it worse this is the only one i use. [Microsoft Sculpt](https://www.microsoft.com/en-ww/accessories/products/keyboards/sculpt-ergonomic-desktop?activetab=overview%3aprimaryr2) (shitty quality for the price, I'm on my forth but its very comfortable, especially just before they break) 4. Avoid smartphones as much as possible or use it with your good hand. I find that it worsens the symptoms even if it is not the root cause. 5. **The by far biggest one**, learn to use vim shortcuts and proper touch typing. You basically never have to use two fingers at the same time. (It is also a huge productivity booster as an added bonus). it will take a month or so before you are back to your old productivity but it WILL BE WORTH IT. Almost all editors either have an option or a plugin to achieve it.

> I have a wrist brace and finger splint right now. I've never used one, but what are they supposed to do? I'd imagine they are used to reduce mobility so you don't strain your muscles, but if you are still working as you'd normally do, then I'd assume they aren't really doing that big of a difference? > I made alt my ctrl key, so I don't have to use my pinky at all; I can use my thumb. But I'll make adjustments as I go. Good man :) Just make sure you rethink your layout from time to time.

I designed a keyboard specifically for use with Emacs that puts ctrl, meta, shift, and backspace all within easy reach of the thumbs and avoid stretching pinkies: https://atreus.technomancy.us It's a lot of work to learn but it's worked great for me. That said, there is no fancy hardware or lifehacks that will save your hands if you type for hours on end without taking breaks. Human hands simply can't do that.

Set long press J to CTRL and long press F to ALT.

This is also my solution. Even if you switch caps with ctrl you still use the pinky all the time. I bought the kinesis freestyle edge and use the right split space bar as ctrl.

I don't have any tips on recovery but my hands are very happy that I learned to use the right ctrl key (basically if you wanna do ctrl + some key, if the key is to be hit with your left hand you use the right ctrl key). Also remapping left ctrl to caps lock is just amazing.

As some suggested ergonomic keyboards, good posture,rest and alternate bindings might help and some recovery time is essential. Since I am at a place where I can't find ergonomic keyboards I had to find other solutions. I switched Ctrl with Alt and then Switched Caps-lock with Esc. That allowed me to use control in the stronger thumb fingers and it allowed me to use Esc instead of Alt in emacs and terminal emulators. Even after that I was having trouble with my right pinky and I found that my right pinky was not feeling right. When doing frequency analysis on the keys I pressed I saw that the right hand pinky was responsible for most keys because was responsible for pressing ";", ":", " ' ", "{","}","\[", "\]", "/","\\", "|",p","+","-","?","Backspace", "Del" "Enter", "RShift" and "RCtrl". Those are too many keys to press with the small and weak pinky. So figure out the core cause problem and try to take care of it using means afforded to you. For me the following helped : * frequent rest * reduce my typing speed slightly * secondary layer for some keys using kmonad * using a modal mode (I use objed with modifications but most people prefer evil) * Swithch Ctrl with Alt on both the right and left side just like the space-cadet keyboard * Switch Caps-lock for Esc since I press escape more often and since it can serve as an alternative to Alt in emacs and any terminal * Gliding my hands over the keyboard rather than having them fixed on the home row. This didn't reduce my typing as much as I feared and allowed me to use stronger fingers for some keys. I saw a video where world record typists do not adhere to the home row method. * Rely on \^M (ctrl-m) instead of enter , \^-D for delete and bind \^h for backspace in emacs

If you have an Apple keyboard (buy a Magic keyboard if not), then you can rebind Command (next to the spacebar) to Ctrl and **use your thumbs (both of them!) instead of your pinkie**. This by itself almost totally eliminated the problem for me, and I'm still perplexed that people don't talk about using your thumbs. It's infinitely better than Caps Lock. Maybe for most people their keyboards just aren't suitable. But wouldn't it be better to get a normal keyboard like Magic instead of a weird ergonomic monstrosity? Ortholinear keyboards, separated keyboards, Dvorak, I've tried it all and would say just don't bother. Another thing I found is that **stress exacerbated the problem for me**. Sounds like it could be the case for you if you're programming 65 hours a week. I highly recommend the book "The Mind-Body Prescription". I'm guessing you're suffering from other mysterious maladies also. The thumbs thing and the stress thing were life-changers for me. Also, take a 5-minute break every hour (maybe half-hour to start with so you heal). Good for your eyes and posture, too.

Get the ergodox keyboard, or similar where you can map the modifier keys to you thumb, the strongest digit. You'll likely get RSI in your other fingers though. Try compression gloves, tape wrap, and finger braces. Stretching helps.

I wonder if something like this, mapped to your Control-key, would help: [USB Foot Switch](https://www.amazon.com/iKKEGOL-Control-Action-Switch-Keyboard/dp/B00CK1BKZQ/ref=sr_1_4?crid=3MHIQKM9LHSGX&keywords=usb+foot+switch&qid=1657524570&sprefix=usb+foot+switc%2Caps%2C271&sr=8-4)

That's an awesome project and I'm glad it works for you. My experience - I used a very similar keyboard called the Planck for half a year and got zero benefit. The ortholinear layout was messing with my ability to type on regular keyboards, and the additional layer was a severe cognitive load. Moreover, I had to carry an extra piece of hardware around with me everywhere (I love taking my laptop to different places) which was cumbersome. I advise most people against such keyboards. You can get the benefits on any Apple laptop or with the lightweight, non-ortholinear Magic keyboard - just set the Command key to Ctrl.

Fortunately, I was never affected by Emacs pinky or CTS. However, as I've started with a truly ergonomic keyboard\[1\], I've read many reports about people who had to switch to a truly ergonomic keyboard in order to be able to continue working in this business. One of the starting points of my journey was Xah with his pages: * [http://xahlee.info/kbd/ergonomic\_keyboards\_index.html](http://xahlee.info/kbd/ergonomic_keyboards_index.html) * [http://xahlee.info/kbd/ergonomic\_keyboards.html](http://xahlee.info/kbd/ergonomic_keyboards.html) Then I wrote multiple articles on that topic myself: read [https://karl-voit.at/2021/01/30/keyboards/](https://karl-voit.at/2021/01/30/keyboards/) and the follow-up articles for my journey with Kinesis Advantage2 LF and my hardware- and layer customization to optimize for GNU Emacs and more. \[1\] I have to use that phrase because companies like Microsoft are selling products that mimic a truly ergonomic keyboard that lacks most of the important features of it. *Ceterum autem censeo* [*don't contribute anything relevant in web forums like Reddit only*](https://karl-voit.at/2020/10/23/avoid-web-forums)

You also don't have to use two fingers at the same time if you use sticky keys.

I really feel for you - this has been a trouble for me for years. I use a Kinesis 3xfootpedal - https://kinesis-ergo.com/shop/savant-elite2-triple-pedal/ and an extra Kinesis pedal for my four modifier keys. I also taped over the keys on the left so I can't use them.

That's why I switched to vim after a couple of weeks using emacs

I would suggest you to try vim or neovim–which is even better–if you didn't do that yet

I have been using HHKB since I started using Emacs. The default positions of the control and backspace have saved me a lot of troubles. I also type at a similar speed with you. As a Chinese medicine practitioner, I would recommend you to try acupuncture. I have treated patients who share similar symptoms with you, including myself. Most of them have instant relief and were cured after several treatments. People who feel numb or “needle like” pain are at the relative early stage, they are easier to deal with. But once you experience the decrease in grip strength or some visual deformations, that is unlikely to go back to normal. But since acupuncture isn’t that common around the globe, you may have a hard time finding a professional acupuncturist.

You should switch to using Emacs, not because some here regard "Emacs pinky" a myth, but because Emacs is the right tool to automate tasks. So for example instead of copy & pasting things, just autocomplete whole lines (and more). That is [easy done in Emacs](https://www.masteringemacs.org/article/text-expansion-hippie-expand). There is more useful stuff like [yasnippet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-bRZlseNm0) Also, you could re-layout your keyboard, I for example moved the control key to my space bar..... Most of us here are no doctors, to take advice with a grain of salt.

>you can use something like autohotkey to easily do it I've used AutoHotKey for a while and it worked great but for some reason it became flaky after the upgrade to Windows 11 so I switched to [PowerToys Keyboard Manager](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/keyboard-manager) to remap `Caps Lock` to `Ctrl`.

True but there is still a lot of reaching involved. With vim you can do most stuff, such as navigating, copy/paste, deleting etc, with just sequences of single presses of the letter keys, like typing, and the occasional shift (usually to get the capital letter and run the movement backwards which is optional, just slightly quicker in some scenarios).

Try to optimize your flow: deleting symbols one by one isn't ergonomic, if I make a mistake I usually just delete the whole word (C-w). I don't know what you use, but for Emacs there's https://github.com/abo-abo/avy which allows making quick jumps (and other actions) in a couple of keystrokes. Keyboard macros are great for automating repetitive tasks. Etc. Do more with fewer movements.

Use something like Miryoku (with QWERTY layout or whatever you use normally). Much easier on the hands, can be used on virtually any standard keyboard on any OS with Kmonad

I used to go to many doctors trying to optimize my performance (had great insurance from an EHR company) and found that they were a lot less useful than I expected. You can get much better advice from actual Emacs users, e.g. on this thread, than you would from doctors. I've also found that doctors are mostly totally ignorant of the stress aspect (see my other comment) which in reality is **huge**. Usually maladies caused by stress are left unexplained by the medical establishment and you are just prescribed pills, sometimes highly-addictive opioids.

I've got RSI (Repetitive strain injury ) early symptons afteringusing IDE for 10 years. Switching to Emacs did not improve RSI. I solved the issue by using some hardware and vim keybindings. Use ergonomic keyboard. If you have to use mouse, try armrest and mouse pad (https://www.kogan.com/au/buy/rotatable-office-desk-armrest-and-mouse-pad-large-essentials-for-you/). In Emacs, there are a few useful packages, - `keyfreq` is must have. I use it to measure my frequently used commands. See http://blog.binchen.org/posts/how-to-be-extremely-efficient-in-emacs/ - `hydra` and `general.el` are useful to re-define key bindings - Knowledge of Lisp and EVIL API is useful to optimize the workflow further. See the evil text objects I defined, https://github.com/redguardtoo/emacs.d/blob/ad2f05137e9496ab4470810fce628557c21143a8/lisp/init-evil.el#L245

1. God-mode + helm. 2. Helm-m-x 3. Helm-show-kill-ring 2. Ergonomic keyboard with thumb control keys. 3. On your laptop, modify the control key layout so that Control is on the key closest to the space bar and the alt is right next to it, on both sides, use both hands to key in combos, and use your thumbs to hold the command keys.

Lots of good info here, i just want to add - make sure your hands are not above your elbows when you sit. So your elbows should be at approx 90 degrees to the keyboard. I had pins and needles when not paying attention to this.

I had this and mostly recovered, you need to take this seriously because it will only get worse if you don't. Here are some things that helped me which haven't been mentioned: * The biggest thing for me was starting doing regular exercise. I did jogging, it wasn't much fun but I only needed like 2 x 30 minute exercise periods a week so at least it's fast. Since then I've started doing indoor bouldering which is much much more fun but also time consuming and expensive. * Set up your editor to autosave on window focus loss, then you basically never need to hit save which helps reduce key presses a little. * Anything else you can do to reduce the number of key presses. e.g. vim bindings, bind a single key for rerunning your current compile+test, write more automated tests instead of testing manually.

Gonna throw my voice into the ergo keyboard choir and ask that you look into not only a split ergo keyboard, but one with 20gram ultralight switches. Usually right now that means kailh choc low-profile purp or blue switches. The adjustment is difficult and for the first few weeks there are a lot of accidental key presses. But after switching you won't ever want to use anything else. It's un-done many years of RSI and wrist issues for me. The offerings by small businesses / individual makers are currently way ahead of the offerings by bigger corporations when it comes to both gram weight and general ergonomics (ultralight + split + ortholinear with thumb clusters) Up-front cost for something that isn't ultra-minimal will likely be 200-300. For a tool you'll use all day every day for years, and that is typically made by hand by a small business, that doesn't seem too bad.

Here's what worked for me: 1. Caps Lock -> Ctrl. 2. An ergonomic keyboard with a split (one of the cheaper ones: Microsoft Sculpt). 3. Regular exercise. IIRC doing deadlifts created a different enough strain on the wrist to stimulate recovery. Do consult with a trainer (or - better - a physical therapist - or both) if you decide to try that route. Of course, it's better to try that only after the acute phase has passed, so you can actually use all your fingers.

A split keyboard with thumb keys can help out a lot. You can essentially program it so all of the modifier keys are on your thumb instead. Even things like shift can be worked out to be a double tap of control. Even moving all of the programming characters to be under the home row can be a huge help rather than having to reach for them under the number keys. Layers really open a lot possibilities. I used to use it for vim with thumb keys for escape and space and stuff. My programming layer was symmetrical like `[{<()>}]`. Which would be under the asdfghjk keys. I forgot what it was exactly, but I put every programming key under the letter characters qwertyuiop mapped to numbers as well. Whats cool is that you can split it up and use one half for gaming. Or the other half with a calculator keymap. The possibilities are endless with QMK software!

I've found that there's a lot more shift key usage in Vim than in Emacs. I use my palms to press both control keys, so I have a pain-free Emacs experience but a day of using Vim makes my pinkies hurt.

Yes! Press Ctrl with your thumbs!

> modify the control key layout so that Control is on the key closest to the space bar and the alt is right next to it, on both sides Thus replicating [one of the original layouts Emacs was designed for](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Space-cadet.jpg).

It sounds like you've seen a doctor about this, but have you considered going to an occupational therapist? They can give you exercises that will help tremendously.

You are temporarily disabled by your work. If you continue to pretend it’s fine, it will get worse. You will then be permanently disabled. It’s time to activate whatever sort of disability insurance or worker’s compensation you have, and to take a break from programming.

I use a ortholinear keyboard with a split spacebar [like this](https://tilde.club/~sean/img/the-preonic-era-cover.jpeg). Using a layout like this, I can bind all of the modifier keys to the thumbs region, which is immensely useful for multi-modifier combinations and keeping my pinkies on the homerow where they belong.

Split spacebar is absolutely the way to go. It's really insane when you think about it... we took our most dextrous and flexible of fingers, then assigned them both to share one giant button! I go as far as splitting my spacebar into 1U keys. It's like adding a 2nd home row and +5 extra keys all for free.

The [miryoku keyboard layout](https://github.com/manna-harbour/miryoku) is a fantastic example of designing a better, homerow-centric keyboard. Moving away from qwerty was a huge step in reducing my hand pain by itself, and once I found miryoku I never looked back.

I recently got an ergodox ez and it's sitting in the box... I really want to like it, but I've already given it three earnest attempts and I don't think it's for me. I don't have any joint or nerve pain after 25 years of standard querty, so that's good I guess.

Use your palm to press control, this does require a keyboard that has raised keycaps, so pretty much impossible to do on chiclet

If you're hitting backspace that much, that may well be part of the problem. You might try practicing typing slower but with 0 mistakes until you can speed up again.

I’d suggest putting your hand in a bucket of ice off and on for a few hours and taking at least a day off. When you return, try to use your palm as a way to hit ctrl or put a Keyboard on your floor with only a ctrl key on it, then hit it with your foot.

This is the best advice anyone could give. Pick whichever keyboard you like that has keys on the thumbs. I've spent a lot of money over the years trying different ones, so if you want my opinions, I'm happy to share. But I think a lot of this is personal preference. My #1 and #2 are the Kinesis Advantage and Ergodox EZ. For me, I use Linux, and often I use window managers that support a lot of hotkeys. I want to have easy access to a Control, and Alt, and a third modifier like Hyper on each hand. I don't know of any keyboard that does this out of the box and also has the split layout with thumb clusters, but you can always remap keys, which is what I do. I think the Kinesis is a little more comfortable for me to type on. The concave wells are supposed to match the length of your fingers held in a natural position, and I think I notice it as a minor benefit in comfort. I also like that remapping the keys can be done entirely on the keyboard. Let's say the layout has a Windows key only on the left thumb. There's a Page Up key on the right thumb, and I want to make that into a second Windows key. You just hit the dedicated "Program" button on the keyboard, then hit the F12 key, which also says "Progm Remap" in small print on it. That puts the keyboard in remap mode. You hit the Windows key first as the source, then the Page Up key as the destination, and it copies the function over so that Page Up now is a Windows key. You can similarly program macros and other functionality. You may need to look something up occasionally to remember the sequence to hit, but it requires no extra software or anything. Downsides of the Kinesis -- it's expensive at ~$350 or so. It's also quite tall to accommodate the concave keywells. If you use a desk that has one of those rollout keyboard trays, it probably won't fit. Those tend to be too low for good ergonomics anyway, but it's worth a mention. I wish it had a few more physical keys. The arrow keys are awkward with left and right on the left hand and up and down on the right. I wish it just had an inverted T. Square bracket/curly bracket keys are in a different place than normal because there's only one physical key to the right of the P key. If there were one more column of keys there, I'd put the brackets on those two keys and move the backslash somewhere else, but as it is, I found it best to just get used to the new bracket placement, and I wish that were better. Similarly, to get three modifiers on each thumb, I needed to sacrifice Home and End as dedicated keys and move Page Up to the other hand. This is all doable, and I've stuck with this keyboard for almost 20 years now, so take all these criticisms with a bit of salt. I'm describing the little flaws in a life partner here, but they are little flaws. The Ergodox is better in a lot of ways. I think it's probably better made. The Kinesis doesn't feel bad by any means, but the Ergodoz feels like it was forged from a brick of solid steel. It's heavy and solid and everything just feels bulletproof. They also use an open-source firmware that has some very cool features if you take the time to learn them. You can do things like make a key do different things with a press vs a hold. Tap / and you get a /. Hold it down for 0.2s or whatever and it becomes an Alt key. That's an example -- it's up to you to customize how you want it to work. It has great support for what they call "Layers". Think of switching layers being like holding down a modifier key. Press "A" and you get an "a". Hold down control and you're on a "control layer" where pressing the "A" key does something different. With the ergodoz, you can create custom layers and control how they work. Maybe you tap a button and you enter a layer where the keys on the right hand become a numeric keypad. Or switch to yet another layer and the left side becomes a custom layout for gaming. On the downside, remapping the keys is less convenient. They have a nice web app where you can visually design a layout, which is nice. That's a perk rather than a downside I guess. But actually applying the mapping is actually downloading your finished mapping as a firmware update, which requires a windows machine with a TFTP client. Or at least this was true a couple of years ago. I've not kept up to date very well on it, so maybe this info is obsolete now. I think that I would be happy with either of these keyboards as my permanent home. I've used the Kinesis for way longer, and I do think it's a touch more comfortable. Every once in a while I switch them out, but honestly, I've probably not spent enough time trying to really take advantage of some of the stuff the Ergodox does well. One last note, and again, this could be personal quirks that don't translate to other people, but I've found that these keyboards are very easy to adapt to *as long as they don't mess with regular letters and punctuation*. I found the Truly Ergonomic too hard to adapt to because of the position of the " key and the / key. Those are things I type very frequently in regular prose and the unix command line. If you move the curly braces, I'm fine. I can go back and forth between my ergonomic keyboards and my laptop with no problem. My hypothesis is that even though I type a lot of []{} in code, there's a natural little mental break there. That mental break isn't there when I touch type a word like "I'm" or "isn't". My brain really wants to type that whole word as an exercise in muscle memory, and if you move my ' key, it all falls apart. I used that Truly Ergonomic for a couple of months, and it never got better. And if that hyptothesis is correct, the "/" key for a unix user functions like a "regular prose" key rather than a "weird punctuation" key, because I couldn't get used to that either. But aside from that, the worries that people have with not being able to go back to a laptop or whatever that doesn't have their weird ergonomic layout are in my experience, overblown. It will take you a few weeks to learn to type on the new layout, but once I learned it, I was able to switch back and forth easily as long as only my modifiers and non-prose keys were all that had moved around too much.

[deleted]

The Planck ortholinear layout is an improvement on the conventional style but it doesn't do anything to help the way that normal keyboards force you to bend your wrists badly. Having the sides angled (or separated with a large gap) is required to address that problem. But the most important takeaway is that "RSI" is a blanket designation for a host of related problems. Just because something works for one person doesn't mean it will work for another; you need to consult a medical professional for that kind of diagnosis. But you don't need to talk to a medical professional to know that it's important to take breaks! That's universal, and that's why I commented.

Yes you are not getting away from it completely of course, but with what editor or keymap would you? Insert mode allows you to do a lot more stuff without using modifiers compared to emacs or other traditional keyboard shortcuts. Not everything

This. Additionally, any sort of pain like that should be treated by a professional. I was surprised, when I saw someone about a similar problem, that the cause had more to do with my shoulder than my hands -- no amount of key remapping was going to solve that issue but physical therapy did, and in short order. Anatomy is weird.

My accuracy is over 99%. I actually changed caps lock to ctrl today as I found it uncomfortable to pull my thumb under my hand to hit alt+c for copy (remember I changed alt to ctrl.) Left alt actually makes a good backspace. I don't hit backspace alone often, usually in combination with ctrl to delete the previous word(s). I also highlight text with ctrl shift often. I depend on a mouse a lot and thus end up using my left hand for a lot of operations. I think my main problem was extending my pinky finger so far down to hit ctrl while my other fingers rested on or near home keys. Based upon the anatomy pictures I've looked at, I probably was putting pressure directly on the ulnar nerve in my wrist. This repetitive motion probably led to inflammation and caused the symptoms I have today. I don't know for sure. I'm hoping to get a CAT scan (or whatever they do) to localize the inflammation, which should give me more info. Thank you

Thanks a lot. #1 is the most important tip to me, followed by #2. I rest my right hand on my mouse much of the time, so my left hand is used for pressing the modifier key alongside the regular key. I think the extension of my pinky finger down to ctrl is the source of my problem. This repetitive motion probably caused inflammation at the ulnar nerve. Now, I have caps lock as my ctrl key, so minimal extension of my pinky is required, and it's just a small horizational movement instead of a far stretch. I'm going to take a break, though. It's very concerning. Thanks again

Does the indoor bouldering not put a lot more stress on your fingers? I'd like to lift but are afraid to as it's a lot of strain on your hands.

Yea the physiotherapist I saw before getting referred to a doctor said “Don’t touch a keyboard again until it stops hurting” i think that you should aim for that if possible.

[1] That phrase could be misread as recommending a keyboard named Truly Ergonomic. Yes, that’s a brand name.

One small thing for me is palm pressing ctrl

There are some good tips here. I'm a professional developer who had a serious injury a little over two years ago. It's only in the past few months that I feel like I've completely gotten over it. So, be patient. Things that helped me: *Disclaimer: I am not a doctor. Take this advice at your own risk, etc.* 1. A little Naproxen Sodium every night helps keep inflammation down and speeds the healing process. Ask doctor for dosage. 2. Rest up! Don't injure yourself. 3. Get a good keyboard. I use the [ZSA Moonlander](https://www.zsa.io/moonlander/) and it has been well-worth the price. There are other good options. You want something with plenty of keys for your thumbs to hit, as well as support for QMK or ZMK firmware. 4. Set your modifier keys to be ones that you can press with your thumbs. Also, consider getting foot pedals. Kinesis makes some. 5. Optimize your keyboard layout to reduce pinky strain. I've moved not only my modifier keys so that I can press them with my thumbs (I also have some mod-tap in place for shift and meta with my index and middle fingers respectively; super handy) but things like tab and backspace. [My layout](https://configure.zsa.io/moonlander/layouts/jLR0Z/latest/0). 6. Physical therapy! Take care of yourself and you won't regret it. Try pushing through the pain, and you *will* regret it.

Sticky modifier keys can help. A problem with modifier keys can be the sustained stress of holding it down whilst pressing (and perhaps stretching for) other keys to press. With sticky modifier keys, you never need to hold down a modifier -- you just tap it like any other key, and the next key will be modified. Furthermore, because you needn't stretch to reach the next key (because your hands are free to move away from the modifier key) you needn't use your pinky for those combinations. I found it *astonishingly* intuitive to make the switch to sticky modifier keys (I avoided doing it for a long time because I assumed it would drive me crazy, but it just made sense to my brain right away). There *was* an adjustment period of course where I'd make the occasional mistake, but it was very minor compared to what I'd feared. YMMV, but highly recommended from my experience. I also formed a habit of using both left and right modifiers, when in the past I would only use the left side. Using both hands for modified key sequences as much as possible is better than putting all the modifier stress on one of your hands.

[deleted]

What is bothering you? Switching to using thumbs, the ortholinear layout of the finger keys? All of the above, something else?

Indeed, that's definitely better than a regular slab. If one goes fully down the rabbit hole, one of the common places to end up with "home row mods" where the Ctrl, Shift, Cmd, and Gui keys are under the the 4 home row finger keys on each hand (used by holding the key down). But that's pretty out there when you're coming directly from a normal keyboard.

What kinds of hand stretching do you do through the day?

can confirm. I had the same symptoms that the topic starter described. And Kinesis Advantage is what saved me. This concave+split form is important. Remember, not just split but concave too.

I had and sometimes still experience the same symptoms and I was so confident to self-diagnose it as RSI. Please don't do it. Consult with a professional doctor, it might be not what you think it is.

The concave seems to make a big different to some people and not much or even negative for others. One aspect of that with the Kinesis is how big your hands and how long your fingers are -- basically, if you don't fit their design envelope, it doesn't work. If you make your own customized version of a e.g. Dactyl Manuform you can adjust those to fit your hands.

I've tried Dactyl Manuform and although it has somewhat similar concave form, from what I see many builds completely ignore the wrist support part. I've tried using it without wrist support and it is very inconvenient. I've tried Dactyl Manuform and although it has a somewhat similar concave form, from what I see many builds completely ignore the wrist support part. &#x200B; I agree with you that concave form is not for all, but I think partially this is because it requires some transition/accommodation period that many don't want to stick to.

Get an neurologist to measure your nerve and where it’s broken. It’s quite funny, they put a tiny needle in your hand and connect a amplifier and speaker to it. When you move your hand you can hear the speaker crackling. Those are the signals form your brain coming in at the hand. :D Now with that method they can tell you exactly where it’s broken. the ulnar nerve is often damaged in the elbow, not the hand. I have that from sitting stupidly. (And I had it from sleeping on my elbow, too. So you’re not wrong here) Or from being too cool when driving and putting my elbow on the door. A small pillow or something for your armrest can do wonders. Be aware that healing of this nerve can take several month. And you don’t want to damage it too often, because sometime it won’t grow back again.

I have to disagree with the comment, mostly with many parts of the comment. 1. the recommend keyboard is bad, if you can't find time to relearn to use a ergonomic keyboard I would suggest to use a shorter keyboard something around 60-70% keyboard idealy with good normal right control key so that the distance between mouse and keyboard is smaller and you don't keep your hand the mouse to often that you have to compensate with overusing left ctrl. 2. for ergonomic layout keyobard you can use that: [https://trulyergonomic.com/ergonomic-keyboards/new-truly-ergonomic-cleave-keyboard/](https://trulyergonomic.com/ergonomic-keyboards/new-truly-ergonomic-cleave-keyboard/) 3. If you fear the 1-7 Days to get full productivity back while learning this layout you can use something like that if you don't need F-keys at least, just a example: [https://www.amazon.de/Ducky-Tastatur-MX-Brown-RGB-LED-Schwarz/dp/B086G52SLZ](https://www.amazon.de/Ducky-Tastatur-MX-Brown-RGB-LED-Schwarz/dp/B086G52SLZ) 4. very important keep the Ctrl key where it is, just press it both sided with the palm instead of your pinky: [http://xahlee.info/emacs/emacs/emacs\_pinky.html](http://xahlee.info/emacs/emacs/emacs_pinky.html) search: "how to press the control key". This website is gold in general keyboard reviews and rsi specific tips for hours. He only recommends ctrl / capsswap for notebook keyboards. 5. Also using a modal mode like in vi or emacs-modal modes could save you from pressing Ctrl-s c/v/x so often. They also have good cheap ergonomic keyobard, probaly easier to adjust because most keys are where you expect them the ergonomic thumb keys are jt a addition: [https://x-bows.com/](https://x-bows.com/) Just don't buy keyboards with numblock, if you absolutely need a numberblock buy it seperately so you can put it above or left from your keyobard, the traveldistance between mouse and 10-key pos should be short that is very important, otherwise you hurt your finger to not hurt your arm from this long distance movement: https://trulyergonomic.com/ergonomic-keyboards/wp-content/uploads/Truly-Ergonomic-Cleave-Reduce-Conventional-Keyboard-Pain-27-1536x806.gif

As you experiment with different key locations, you might want to consider installing [Kmonad](https://github.com/kmonad/kmonad). It gives you keyboard layout superpowers. I like to put all the modifiers on the number row and make them dual-purpose. So if you tap 4 or 9, it sends the respective number. But if you hold either of them down, they work as Ctrl. I've also got a number-key pair for Shift and another for Ctrl-Alt (since they're used together a good bit in Emacs), with the Alt keys themselves staying where they are. Some people do a similar thing using the home-row keys, but that requires using a certain rhythm when typing. Still others give the space-bar an alternate role as Ctrl key.

I switched to using an ergonomic keyboard with QMK, so I can reprogram the keys at will, and place control so that I use it with my thumb. A thumb cluster is a really good way of helping out with this and relieving the pinkies. Both of them.

Oh, so that was you! The keyboard I use, and love, is the Atreus from the kickstarter. I like the extra thumb keys on that, it makes a difference. Unfortunately I can't plug in a QMK type keyboard at work. Only keyboards approved by the security department are allowed, and anything programmable is an automatic no. But I use it for my own work, and for writing, and I love it.

The Planck is ortholinear, but not ergonomic. And it has no thumb cluster. It's not really similar at all, and does not have the main benefits of the Atreus.

Ergodox EZ runs QMK, so can be updated using QMK tools. There is also a flasher running natively under Windows, Linux and macOS on their homepage. It's not hard at all to change the keymap on it these days.

Caps lock -> ctrl gang here. That is definitely the right choice for the long term. In terms of RSI, I got a lot of relief by strengthening my forearm extensors (the muscles that help your fingers open up). Super simple, just some rubber bands around your fingers and slowly expand them open. You can fond tons of exercises online.

You should see an occupational therapist that specializes in hands.

This is probably the best thing you can do: learn to use the bottom of your left palm to press control. Get a keyboard that lets you do it easily. the second thing: get a Popsicle stick and tape tape your pinky so you dont use. third: if you use a laptop, carry an external keyboard. all three have worked for me in the past.

Ultimate Hacking Keyboard

my solution this problem for me is vim mode + ctrl on caps lock to minimize hand movement from "home row". Another important solution is binding frequently used functions to leader-combinations, based on space to avoid multi-keys like C-M-i and Control-based-keybindings. For example: goto from current file to directory is "Space then j", kill buffer is "Space k", open file is "Space f", and so on. Plus i have global keybindings for arrows and home/end keys replacement: Command+h/j/k/l/y/o for non-vim/evil modes. And this complex give me extra-comfort for my pinkie and other fingers.

Damn. I didn't know that. Thanks for the correction. You might want to propose a different term ;-)

I don’t know if there is a commonly accepted and sufficiently accurate term. What is ergonomic for one, is torture for another. (Case in point: I swear by thumb keys but some consider them unergonomic.)

I have to disagree with your comment🙂 1. Recommending a smaller keyboard (that is not split or angled) is terrible advice for someone with wrist issues. That puts even more strain on your wrists, especially if you have broad shoulders. 2. The one I linked has a separate numpad and is quite small so you obviously didn’t look at it. But yea I’m sure there are better ones out there, I just shared the one that works for me and otherwise I agree

1. I didn't remember exclusively say that he should get a non-ergonomic keyboard or not explicitly keyboard even smaller keyboards are crearly more ergonomic just not perfect. But again I offered links to x-bows and truly ergonomic keyboard so you cherry pick my argument to have something to say about it. You on the other hand link to a overpriced garbage quality keyboard that you have to replace each year. 2. you talk about wrist, when the OP clearly stated that his main problem is the pinkey key. That has little to nothing to do with wrist angle. 3. I added into consideration that some people especially if they need it in their daily routine a fast working solution that don't interrupts their work to much that this smaller keyboards would be a compromise, and again because he did not state primary about wrist but his pinkie that is a acceptable solution or at least a stepstone people can take. The ideal solution would probably give up keyboard writing for at least 1 year and go to tibetian temple and do some breathing things and whatever... I know that people are not willing always to go the most extreme route, otherwise I would also suggest to learn dvorak or another layout. Sometimes you have to take people where they are, he is clearly willing to try some stuff but if he is willing to buy a totally ergonomic design with aligned keys, I don't know therefor I gave him both options. 4. You even made some absurd claims that mechanical keyboards are less ergonomic somehow, which is a extreme minority opinion.

I read your comment again more thoroughly and yes you are right I was a little quick to judge, sorry. But OP asked for personal experiences, that’s what I gave and it is worth to mention that keyboards with large key travel is not for everyone.

Yes I could have made a own comment and not shit on yours parts of it are good, I probably used it a bit in the hope he reads it more likely than my making a 500. comment under his post. I could have been less confrontational :P Basically I want to give my few cents but framed it a bit to shit on you, nice that you have no big ego, like that :)

It is definitely similar in being ortholinear and having the additional layer. Both of these have tremendous downsides that the label "ergonomic" does not make up for.

from Xah I got this advice of swapping Ctrl with Alt (atleast on left side) such a life saver because: you use thumbs for Ctrl and pinky base (instead of pinky) for Alt ! oh and swapping caps-lock to Esc.

God-mode That is all

> Only keyboards approved by the security department are allowed, and anything programmable is an automatic no. … dang. If that were a policy at my company, I would quit on the spot. Either that or file a complaint with HR—my particular keyboard is a physical need for me, and I would complain that security was denying accessibility to me. What industry do you work in?

> You can get the benefits on any Apple laptop or with the lightweight, non-ortholinear Magic keyboard - just set the Command key to Ctrl. Things you're missing: (with the Plank too) - split and tenting (really important for certain kinds of RSI) - mod-tap (possible with plugins, e.g. Karabiner, but better with QMK) - staggard columnar ala the Moonlander All of those contribute to ergonomics and have made a huge difference for me and some of my friends with other issues that regular keyboards just don't give you.

what worked for me is buying a dog grooming shop where i can still use my programming skills to automate scheduling billing and client communication (to some extent), but i also do a lot of physical work now. a jiffy lube or something similar (maybe fast food chain) would probably also work (if i had to guess i would say fast food might be the least risky and easiest to break into). just scrolled through the advice and didn't see this particular vein explored yet. I had carpal and cubital tunnel syndrome. taking a break for two weeks didnt help me (i spent the two weeks playing videogames using only my feet, didn't use my hands at all). sleeping on a tempur pedic pad and ditching my mattress helped, but not enough. I use spacemacs and vim keybindings, and have always done so pretty much. so that didn't prevent it from happening. it's not an easy job, but if you are programming enough to have this problem you are probably a sufficient workaholic to acclimate easily to the small business "lifestyle". one other thing i would recommend is if you do play videogames find less click heavy ones. e.g. no mmorpg or arpgs, instead turn based strategies (dominions 5), maybe online chess, zachtronics games, eve online maybe, maybe some vr games in moderation. you can also use bash script and command line pdf/ebook reader to make reading more convient and keep bookmarks for you on the computer (more time reading=less time typing) some of the things that could make this financially appealing or unappealing: could secretly live in your store to avoid paying rent, if you don't need health insurance you don't have to pay for it (if you need health insurance it's probably less appealing)

my solution works inside emacs+evil, vscode+vim plugin and mostly in native vim

Defense industry. The amount of security restrictions are phenomenal, and add an order of magnitude to the complexity of everything. But I get to work on really cool stuff, so I suffer.

Layers. Not layer. Which is a tremendous advantage, especially in combination with ergonomic. And it's not ortholinear, since it's staggered. The Planck is a very different beast from an Atreus, and your experience with one does not translate at all to the other. The Atreus is an immensely good and ergonomic emacs keyboard.

> Layers. Not layer. I meant that the additional layer is required in order to type numbers, symbols, etc. It makes it much harder to type on. From the page: > Because there are so few keys, typing relies on the fn key, which changes to a layer containing a numpad, arrows, and punctuation when held. In other words, same deal as the Planck, with all the downsides of that. Claiming it's "ergonomic" doesn't change that - it's wishful thinking with a dash of sunk cost fallacy.

> Things you're missing: (with the Plank too) - split and tenting (really important for certain kinds of RSI) - mod-tap (possible with plugins, e.g. Karabiner, but better with QMK) - staggard columnar ala the Moonlander These are great if you want to pretend you're in a rocketship, haha. I have a mechanical keyboard myself and it's a lot of fun, but it's nothing other than an expensive toy. I have no pretensions about it being better than a laptop keyboard, and I specifically got one with a similar layout to my laptop for seamless switching. I have also used the Ergodox and thought it was awful and not ergonomic at all. Stuff like split and tenting and mod-tap are basically gimmicks with zero (to me) value. Have tried all the different switches too (had a tester with 100 of them) - fun, not practical. > have made a huge difference for me and some of my friends Honestly? Placebo. If you are serious about your physiological health, your time/money is better spent educating yourself - definitely start with Mindbody Prescription.

No, it doesn't make it harder to type on. What it does, is have a learning curve. It actually makes it *easier* to type on once learned. Just like it isn't easier to edit in Notepad than in emacs. It just seems that way to someone who has not learned emacs. That it is ergonomic is not a claim but a statement of fact. And that ergonomic layout is the whole point of the Atreus. The layers are part of that ergonomy.

Your argument breaks down into two parts. 1. Any bespoke keyboard which shares a few keywords in description is the same as another bespoke keyboard (i.e., the argument that vim and emacs are identical, and by knowing how one is you know how the other is) 2. Anyone advocating something with a learning curve, but which I do not appreciate, is engaging in a sunk cost fallacy (i.e., anyone not liking emacs proves that anyone liking it is engaging in a sunk cost fallacy). In addition you do not seem to understand that "ergonomic" is a specific design feature, nor what the point of it is. Yet you have some rather strong and harsh opinions on it.

So anything which you do not like is placebo, and advocating for something one has found works is sunk cost fallacy. Mindbody Prescription sounds like pretentious woo. Why is THAT not placebo, and why is you advocating it NOT sunk cost fallacy? Think about that before you smash into other people's experiences with that chip on your shoulder. As to your disparaging comments about keyboards, the Dunning Kruger in them speaks for itself.

Yea and right back at you, its rare when both parties are willing to admit mistakes on the internet, this should be celebrated. BUT Now that we both have calmed down i just want to touch two points some more. Maybe you, like me, can come out of this with a more nuanced view. If not i will not argue more I promise :) &#x200B; >you talk about wrist, when the OP clearly stated that his main problem is the pinkey key. That has little to nothing to do with wrist angle. Try to do this: 1. Extend your pinky like you are reaching for control key on a giant keyboard until you feel discomfort. 2. Keeping it there flex your wrist to the right like you had shoulders like a gorilla and a very tiny keyboard. 3. Then Extend your hands up as much as possible like you were resting your wrists on the desk in front of a keyboard with unreasonably high caps. 4. Fold your elbows like if you were close of a realy high desk These all put strains on the same nerve and you should notice that your discomfort that you feel from only overextending your pinky is enhanced if you combine it with the other "bad" joint angles so saying that pinky problems is not connected to wrist position is a simplification that is not necessarily true. When that nerve is already irritated and inflamed in the pinky joint it becomes more sensitive, so for me at least, putting strain on it in other places (like the wrist or elbow) makes it hurt even though i'm no longer overextending my pinky and that it wasn't what caused the issue in the first place. You are of course correct though that it could very well be enough in OP's case and that starting there is the obvious first step. &#x200B; >You even made some absurd claims that mechanical keyboards are less ergonomic somehow, which is a extreme minority opinion. Point 3 above is what makes keyboards with high profile keys not work for me, i own two and trust me i have really tried, but it just doesn't feel natural to me to not be able to rest my wrists with my fingers on the keys for extended periods of time in between typing (and occasionally while typing even though i know i shouldn't) but having a keyboard that is angled downwards with flat keys like the crappy Microsoft one with the extra stand installed solves that problem for me and simply feels more comfortable and helps me put my wrists in a better position. I'm for sure not as fast and make more typing mistakes, but that's a small price to pay compared to pain. How extreme minority this is, i have no idea, It could definitely be just me projecting because that's what happened to me, but you can argue that flat keyboards makes it easier to get it right without trying to, because just putting your hands on it without thinking leaves your wrists in a better position. I do think you can get biased in the sphere of keyboard enthusiasts online where the consensus is "mechanical is always better period" (I know i did and it took me a while to realize that for me personally it wasn't). But it is definitely worth to at least question when there is health issues involved because then you are a minority and the consensus might no longer apply. But to summarize, i agree that "the best advice is the one you are able to follow, solves the immediate problem and is easiest to implement" and that an ergonomic keyboard is a waste of money if you do not learn to type on it properly. And hopefully OP can get professional help from someone who knows more about this than both of.

I mean both of my keyboards have a angel, I personally also like when keys are not offsetted, my fingers are pretty straight so why would you bend them. I just think that keychords if or even the pressing esc with long stretched finger and often pressing or with ctrl key in other cases are the main causer for finger stress. And he mentions another thing that he always holds his hand on his mouse, and presses Ctrl- c / v / x often this keys are normaly on the left side, so from the school book you would basically press the right ctrl with them, but we all learned to press them 1 hand with the left hand, so the first thing is to try to make them stop doing this, somehow, because that is probably the moment he experiences the pain most. Now he doesn't use emacs which makes a software solution more difficult, so one thing I am not always use but still use I don't know didn't meassure it let's say 50% of the time is the palm pressing which when I did it first time I thought I would never get used to that, but if you learn that you can do it and you fear the pain you start doing it, because the benefit of not having the pain is a good motivator :D I know that many people like the thin keys, I had such phase myself, it's hard to make a good argument for one or the other, one argument would be that all the really otherwise very ergonomic keyboards have mechanical switches. But there are lower profile keyboards also for mechanical just a example: https://voltcave.com/low-profile-keyboards/ Yet I think the problem might be the angle between the flat table and the higher keyboard, that can be solved with a whrist-pad, but only the included did it for me with the predecessor of this keyboard: https://trulyergonomic.com/ergonomic-keyboards/mechanical-keyboards/products/cleave-truly-ergonomic-mechanical-keyboard/ Which is very similar, sadly after 8 years or so the well with the predecessor screwed onto wrist padding like expanded and I had to remove it and sadly there is no way it seems to get any replacement. But it's not like a big issue to use it without that for me at least. I go so far that I am disgusted by most notebook keyboards because they have zero hub. I think there is a misconception between subjective feeling and how long it really takes till your hands get tired or if they hurt. Small discomfort seem to not automatically translate to pain, even if you use the pc many hours per day. I mean let's say the angle would be slightly bad for your wrist, hitting with a axe a tree probably would also not be super comfortable, the wrist is much bigger and as long as it's fully engaged and not only lapsided with a bad angle a slight discomfort with here and there pauses might not be that big of a problem. Also I think the different switch types not only the profiles but even the different companies might make a big difference, too. I had somewhere a cheap non-ergonomic small keyboard and I can somehow write much faster it has blue switches I think cherry but not 100% sure, the Xbows has also blue but it's gatheron maybe the other was even Kalith I don't know. But even with notebook keyboards there is a to small hence why I prefer lenovo laptops with some travel distance. But one thing you can't forget, you will make more mistakes with non ergonomical keyboards than with ergonomical, so if the differences are not big in general you will get 1-3% more tired because of that alone. and each time stretch your finger probably to a backspace key with your pinkey to remove it. It's so many factors that seperate a ergonomic keyboard from a non-ergonomic, the height of keys is 1 in 10 of this, so I would not put so much focus onto it and btw switch forth and back between different keyboards is also a effective tactic to help your hands and fingers, because each keyboard will strain your hands more or less on different areas. It's hard to make a scientific statement about how thick a keyboard is and their ergonomics, but I have a feeling like the judgement is a bit and I could be wrong like going to mcdonalds and say "well that tastes really good", because it checks your old triggers of "good". It's a bit a illusion. In fact I had a non-ergonomic I have to say, keyboard and before than others, and was short of instinctively giving up computer usage, just something in me not a rational thought more some well internal tiring / pain thing, like if you have a hurting foot you start overusing the other one just automatically, some sort of evasion mechanism, and I had that for pc use and just did other things instead. (after studying computer science) then I looked a bit into keyboards and my first mechanical keyboard was then this 250 dollar keyboard: https://lanoc.org/images/reviews/truly_ergonomic_207/image_5.jpg Sure again the padding surely helps but yes it was day and night and I could use compture again for long hours without issues, so it can be at least not such a big issue with the big keys that it outweights the other advantages. I can't say if it's a negative or positive factor, but the factor can't be that big. And then you have a money question this thing is in use 10 years later... how many ms keyboards have you buy in that time? I mean there are so many factors do you put your arms on the end of the table or your elbow how high is your chair compared to the table, it's hard to get everything perfect, you should move a bit so that the body can switch different burdens.

> Defense industry. Ah, ok. That makes perfect sense then. I was wondering if that was the case. A Kinesis Freestyle is a pretty good, relatively inexpensive option: it's a split board. If they'll allow you to use a Freestyle Pro, which has some limited reprogrammability (it doesn't support QMK or the like) then you can make one of your space bars act like ctrl on hold, esc on tap, which saved me a ton of pain. Given the threat model you have to defend against though… I dunno.

The repeated, lived experience of myself and several of my friends carries a little more weight than your claim that it's all just in our heads, don't you think? ;-) Edit: I looked at some of your other comments on this thread and I'm guessing you had some pain that doctors couldn't help you with. I too have noticed a combination of lower stress, better hydration, good cardio (running and swimming) with a dash of naproxen sodium helped mitigate that. I finally found a physical therapist who was able to *really* help me with the particular kind of strain that I had, and it was lovely. *But* it was a long, slow journey to find that particular therapist. It's frustrating for sure. But don't let that frustration make you discount the fact that ergonomic keyboards really are better for certain kinds of pain, and not every ergonomic keyboard works for everyone. In my case, I really did need the tenting and thumb cluster. I really wanted something cheaper and simpler to work (this is my third ergonomic keyboard) but nothing else quite cut it.

Do you use any software to compensate? (Not sure if that's an option where you work.) E.g. [Karabiner](https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/) for macOS lets you make modtap keys, etc.; I'm sure better options exist for Linux as well.

Not really an option. I just have to suffer. But I can run a nice emacs with solid configuration, so I set that up in a good way to reduce RSI. It works pretty well. I'd love to have my Atreus at work though. It would be amazing.

Lifting and strengthening really helped my issues as well. It's definitely scary but you need to balance out because lots of repetitive use of weak muscles is a recipe for lots of pain, stronger muscles will be able to handle better. But definitely take a break and let them rest first, don't jump headfirst into it! Start by exercising the rest of your body, I don't know why exactly but it did really seem to help me.

> I actually made my caps backspace, so it's easier for me to delete the millions of mistakes I make (plus ctrl backspace is really handy). Wait, you have one of the most frequently used keys for you on your pinky? Won't this make your pinky problem worse?

> An ergonomic keyboard with a split (one of the cheaper ones: Microsoft Sculpt). I used a sculpt for a while and it provides relief. The keys tired out my fingers though, so I switched to a Kinesis Advantage LF with 45g actuation force and it solved that problem. Of course good wrist angle is table stakes and usually requires having a good chair, standing desk, and keyboard tray.

A standing desk is great, but IME it mostly helps with the other parts of the body.

I actually enjoy the ortholinear layout quite a bit. I make a lot of mistakes of course, but the lower travel distance on the fingers is wonderful. Strangely enough it's the customization that gets me. The default layout is pretty bad and I don't really have time or interest in tweaking things to the level where I would be satisfied. I might try to trade it for a kinesis advantage

I already changed it. I've been making adjustments as I go, so don't take any changes here as gospel.

Ah, indeed, right. I couldn't stand the default EEZ layout, either. I did some initial, simple tweaks and then started in with building a more and more custom layout directly with qmk and that led me right into dumping the EEZ and my rush down the rabbit hole. First stop, a Corne. If you're looking into the Kinesis Advantage, check out their new 360 version before buying an older version. Looks like they finally made a bunch of the changes we were asking for years and years ago.

Thanks for the tips! I'll check it out

First of all, Sorry if you felt like I insulted your experience. I can definitely be more empathetic - I'm working on that. I do believe in what I'm saying, and I really think you should give that book a shot - it just might surprise you. It changed my life, personally. Used to have knee, back, wrist, neck, and stomach pain from all my repressed stress and that's basically all gone. Maybe that's just not what you need at this point of your life journey. Regardless, I pray that you have a lovely day.

Sorry for discounting the experience of you and your friends. I shouldn't speak so boldly without knowing more about you all. > I really wanted something cheaper and simpler to work (this is my third ergonomic keyboard) but nothing else quite cut it. That's great! I would just add, make sure you watch for other strange symptoms that pop up. If it really is repressed stress, an intervention that seems to work will coincide with a new issue coming up elsewhere in the body - there has to be some kind of release for the stress. Hope you don't run into that though and that you love your keyboard. It looks cool!

>Mindbody Prescription I don't need it. I have all the placebo I require already.

I looked through the Mindbody Prescription. It's basically the observation that pain, especially chronic pain, is exacerbated by stress responses, and those need to be managed, taken to eleven. Or more like twelve. For most people who have learned to deal with pain, this isn't exactly news. I'm glad it helped you. But it is irresponsible in the extreme to prescribe this approach as the primary approach to alleviating an RSI. Especially a keyboard induced RSI. The causes behind RSI are often mechanical, Mindbody Prescription dogma notwithstanding, and not alleviating that mechanical problem will simply push the problem into the future - where it will be worse due to further prolonged periods of mechanical aggravation. Using an ergonomic keyboard which relieved the mechanical issue is going to help prevent this. After that, sure, consider the stress responses and mental attitude, but that is very seldom the root cause of something like an RSI.

Similar to many suggestions here, I remapped my keyboard when I started to have problems: https://codeberg.org/lechner/rocket-layout

I had some hand/wrist pain some years ago. Was already using caps as ctrl. These days I'm fine. Things I did: 0. stop working when it hit me (completely agree with https://old.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/vw9uq5/comment/ifq5g29 ) 1. pushups 2. better desk/chair so that my elbows are about 90 degree angle when typing 3. regular breaks (programs like workrave or safeeyes can give reminders, or develop a caffeine addiction) 4. vim bindings Can't say for sure which is most effective, but I'm pretty certain keybindings and keyboards don't have much effect compared to posture, exercise and breaks (including good sleep). If you're doing the same repeated motion a thousand times a day it doesn't matter much if it's 2cm up or down.

Before switching to team caps->ctrl (actually I use an ergo split now with ‘a’ and ‘;’ mapped to ctl, shift on the thumb cluster, and another thumb for vim cursor movement) but before that, *I taped erasers to the ctrl keys and palmed them.*

Who has time for qmk when we’ve got init.el to maintain, am I rite?

This but unironically