
For example, most people are right handed, and most mice are manufacture red for right-handed people. The vertical mice market is still fairly empty, and that lack of competition has led to a plethora of unremarkable mice being offered from many manufacturers. In other words, every vertical mouse should help you avoid hurting your wrist, but not every vertical mouse will have everything you want. That may mean having extra buttons you can program, DPI configuration buttons, and even the quality of the build used by the device itself. At the end of the day, vertical mouse or not, you still want your mouse to do all the things you expect it to do. Just because your mouse is the right shape doesn’t mean it’s the right mouse for you. Carpal tunnel syndrome and similar injuries are the result of these minor agitations being applied to your joint day after day, forming a pattern of repetitive abuse. That rotation feels uncomfortable, but holding the standard mouse position is even worse. After holding this position for a moment, glide your hands around to the bottom of the wheel, and you’ll feel the pressure from the rotation inside your shoulder as the joint internally rotates. Pay attention to how your shoulders are positioned when your hands are placed at 10-and-2 on the wheel. This is a restful position for your both types of joint, and long-term violations of this position can lead to pain.Īlternatively, pretend there’s a steering wheel in front of you and grab it. Entering this pose, you should immediately feel a difference in pressure on your shoulders and wrists. Take a moment to rest your elbows at your sides, with your forearms wrist-side up, as though you were trying to strike a traditional meditative pose. Strained mouse positions also engage your shoulders.

Ergonomic designed mice are better than their non-ergonomic counterparts, but most still have a fundamental flaw by suspending your wrist in a non-neutral position against a flat surface.īut the wrist isn’t the only place that suffers. Using a standard mouse for hours on end will damage your body, and that’s reflected in the huge portions of people who suffer from carpal tunnel every year. The result is neutral state that won’t lead to tension, damage, or lead to carpal tunnel. Vertical mice solve this problem because a vertical mouse keeps you in an anatomically rested position, and don’t lead to compression of the wrist. As a result, forearm bones tighten around the joint space. In a resting state, the forearm is in a thumbs up position, but an ordinary mouse pushes your wrist into a palm-down position.

The price of enduring carpal tunnel is weeks of rest, a wrist that may never fully recover, and the possibility of significant surgery. Most of these injuries originate with people working an office job, lurched over their computers for hours on end. Nearly half a million of those affected will suffer badly enough to seek relief from surgery. As many as eight million Americans are affected by carpal tunnel syndrome every year.
