I spent the week of 2/2 I spent on site with a customer. I took my Kinesis keyboard and iFold stand and various hand rests with me. I was in more consistent pain than I can remember for most of the week. I experimented with various heights of wrist wrests by inserting dense foam (designed for motorcycle race seats). Ultimately I think my chair was too low. Sit in your chair, put your elbows at your sides bent 90 degrees and shrug your shoulders–that was about the level of the keyboard.

2/9 I was back to my regular desk in where I am able to raise the chair high enough that the keyboard is right below my hands with my elbows at my side and bent 90 degrees. That and a gel support for my mouse hand is working well and I am maybe even typing faster than normal. I am not using wrist rests at the keyboard: in theory with my elbows at my sides I am suspending only my hands and forearms. Bellis and Damany advocate no wrist rests.

The nerve “twanginess” is all but gone, replaced by some pain in my elbows around the ulnar nerve. Bending my elbow is consistently less painful this week: I can button a shirt, put on a motorcycle helmet, braid my hair etc, with only minimal pain.

I am finding when I sleep I notice very slight numbness in my hands more than usual, about half the time in the ulnar distribution. It’s slight to the point that it might be in my head. I am sleeping with B more nights than not and she often sleeps on one of my arms.. I find I can rotate my arm slightly or shift my weight to a more bony part of my arm to make the numbness go away.

I discovered this weekend that I have traded sleeping on my arm with my elbow bent for leaning on or contorting my wrist. I’ll need to work on that.