Mouse shoulder- repetitive strain in right arm. Any ideas to help?

[pharmachameleon]

This is for my DH and he's in real pain. He's an accountant and sits at his desk using his mouse and numbers of his keypad in work all day. His right arm has been sore for months and his physio has said that he has 'mouse shoulder'. The physio gave some exercises but he's still in loads of pain. Has anyone had this and can advise on tips to help? Thanks

Does he go to the gym?

@DustyLee123 He does but he lifts heavy weights so is quite bulky. He plays golf but hasn't been out since later summer last year. Over the winter he hasn't really been out walking much or doing anything that helps his flexibility which I'm presuming doesn't help.

my DH had this and it kept getting worse. things that help
-switch the mouse to left hand and use left hand as much as possible
-separate numeric keypad on the left of the keyboard and use that with the left hand
-physio for right hand and shoulder
-get ergonomic chair and standing desk etc

do take this seriously and make an effort to do physio otherwise it will keep getting worse.

He needs to get moving. There are a tonne of YouTube yoga and shoulder and upper back and neck stretching videos. He needs to get movement into the area, and keep seeing his physio!

He needs to take very regular movement breaks and change up his setup.

I'm dealing with mouse elbow at the moment and it's really a combination of things that will help you heal.

Also check if his work will help him arrange an ergonomic assessment.

Ergonomic mouse made a huge difference to me. Worth a look.

Thanks all. He's self employed so no one to help him with an ergonomic assessment unfortunately. He's just ordered a vertical mouse and a footstool thing for under his desk. I know he'll sit for hours and get stressed and not move from his desk-he really does need to move more!
@parietal I think moving the mouse and number pad to his left hand side would make a big difference but would really slow down his work-would be worth the effort though.

switching to the left hand does make you slower and is v frustrating but it is a hell of a lot better than losing the ability to use your right hand altogether and having long term pain. so it is worth putting up with it.

My friend’s husband had a similar issue. She convinced him to try stretching and that was the solution! He needs to learn some stretching exercises and take regular breaks.

If that doesn’t work an osteopath helped me with chronic neck tension and pain. Might be worth a shot.

All of the above, and get an ergonomic mouse. It really helped me.

Get him to get something like this and sleep with it on. It holds your wrist in the correct position to relieve the pain.

www.amazon.co.uk/Pure-Health-Premium-Wrist-Support/dp/B0CBG8VW4K/ref=asc_df_B0CBG8VW4K/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=658914664988&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=7571694970520373479&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1006904&hvtargid=pla-2196940606984&psc=1&mcid=1aec03b8afa430d088f3063fac26d3cc

I was just about to suggest the wrist support for carpal tunnel/repetitive strain injury. I get carpal tunnel pain on and off and a wrist support at night works really well.

Switching the mouse to the left hand.
He'll get used to it really fast. I had to do that for same reason.

Ime this may mean his seat is not high enough so he’s needing to raise his right shoulder a bit. To find out, get him to sit with hands on keyboard, look to see if wrist is just slightly lower than elbow. If not he has to adjust chair height to get into this position. If chair doesn’t go high enough he will need a new chair and look for this as a parameter when choosing.

the HSE have good info on desk set up.

search for NASA desk exercises-these are really good and cover the basic stretching and strengthening exercises.

try typing ‘breakthru’ into ms teams… this is the built in movement scheduler. It also has two minutes of movement led by a little avatar that he can follow. It can feel quite silly but it really works!

I have the Logitech lift mouse which is great.

A problem with using a built in keypad is that your mouse ends up too far away so you’re stretching out to the side to get it. Depending on the ratio of typing to number input he might find a separate number pad placed in between a split keyboard could work. But just using a shorter TKL keyboard could help a lot.

it’s all about avoiding the stretch to the side and the rotation inwards of the forearm.

This company are good: https://www.keyboardco.com/

These are all brilliant, thanks. I think the separate number keyboard will help a lot as he stretches his body to reach this. I suspect his chair needs to be raised too. The MS teams moved thing songs good-he'll check that out.
Hopefully this will all help.

ibugel,
exercise
rollerball mouse was suggested to me

A standing desk is fantastic, especially if height adjusts. walking mats under really change the dynamics of how the body works. Wobble mats also. These are generalised but there’s a good chance the issues caused by the mouse are a signifier that he’s just not moving at all.
You need to be wary of wrist braces (ask physio first) as can weaken wrist and store up new problems if relied upon.

If he lies on the floor with a tightly rolled towel under his upper spine his shoulders will drop back and it stretches the muscles across your front upper chest -I do this and it loosens up the shoulder muscles and improves my posture. You can buy curved supports on Amazon for this. I lie for 10 mins.
Might not work so well if very muscular but worth a try maybe.

He needs to treat this very seriously because this sort of injury ruins careers - it's not hyperbole, it's happened to me and it happened to several people I know.

He needs to formulate a thorough and ongoing plan and stick with it.

He can self-refer to NHS physio. If he can afford it I would also 100% have private treatment too (which is far superior to NHS in this field).

Ergonomic desk set up. All of it, chair, desk, screen, mouse, keyboard.

Regular rest and gentle stretch/mobility exercise breaks, say every 30 minutes for 5 minutes. Yes it's a lot of interruption - but I cannot stress too much that his entire ability to do any computer-based job for the rest of his life, is at stake.

Focus his lifting on strong back muscles and actively reduce his much he does that's working his pectoral and other front muscles. Include pilates/yoga into his exercise routine so that he is lengthening and stretching out muscles to reduce nerve impingement.

Investigate dragon speech software and use it. It will feel frustrating and clunky, it takes time to get used to - do it anyway.

Alternate heat and ice on the affected areas.

Accept that productivity will reduce, and reduce his workload, before he has no option but to go off sick. Enough time off to rest and heal is the best treatment but as he is self-employed I assume he won't do that, so he MUST do absolutely everything else that he can to try to prevent a situation where he is forced out of his work entirely.

Echoing Grimchas's advice here. I'm an accountant and ten years ago I started to struggle with back and arm pain. I fixed it, but it took lots of physio, years of expensive pilates, changing to a standing desk, and buying Dragon Dictation software.

The difficulty with accountancy work is the speed and intensity of manipulating spreadsheets. It's very different to writing documents or using the internet, where you might need the mouse every so often. With spreadsheets it's constant and eventually the body can't cope.

Your DH needs to try everything that has been suggested and not fixate on solving the problem with just one thing, as it's partly a mindset change that's needed. For example, a vertical mouse might help for a bit, but he might need to switch it around with a standard mouse. Also, with the standing desk, the point is to change position regularly, even shifting arm height by a cm for a while can help.

For me, the two game changers were pilates, which have gradually strengthened my body and the Dragon voice recognition software, which enabled me to carry on working when I was still really bad. Dragon isn't great with complex Excel tasks, but I use it for everything else to save my arm for the really intense work.

Hope he finds a solution that works for him.

Sorry, Grimchmas, not Grimchas's..

Thanks so much everyone. I've sent a screenshot of everything here to him.

I agree with @Grimchmas . He needs to take this very seriously.

I do workstation assessments in my job. Prevention is easy but once someone has a problem like this it's extremely hard, often impossible, to reverse.

The biggest issue he has is that he's sitting in a static position for way too long at a stretch. He needs to adjust all the hardware to the correct position and get a better mouse (or avoid mouse use) but this won't fix everything so that he can carry on as before. He can't. He absolutely MUST break up the computer work, so he isn't sitting there for long stretches. For someone with a problem like his, the minimum is 10 minutes break in every hour, and that means out of the chair moving around. He also needs frequent micro breaks, every few minutes, when he moves his body, looks away from the screen, shakes his hands, stretches etc. This is not time wasting - productivity and accuracy fall if you don't refresh yourself with breaks, even if you're not aware.

He can buy all the equipment in the world, but if he doesn't change his way of working he'll soon be back to square one.

One more thing. He could try a graphics tablet instead of using the mouse - this worked for me when I had a wrist problem. Instead of swiping and clicking the mouse you swipe and tap with the pen, so you avoid that repetitive movement of the forefinger which is so bad for the wrist.

Agree with pp on modifying his lifting routine. What does he do right now, deadlines, biceps curls and suchlike? I have personally found that mouse work results in shoulder tension and that in turn can impinge nerves and blood circulation to my mouse arm. What's helped is strengthening, not just back but specifically all rotator cuff muscles. Also triceps exercises. I do light impact, high rep dumbbell and barbell work. Triceps push-ups- e.g. leaning backwards against a table or raised steps- are also immensely useful.

For acute wrist trouble, a wrist brace has helped me, especially overnight.