<story><title>Using two keyboards at once for pain relief</title><url>https://symboliclogic.io/years-of-pain-solved-by-really-obvious-keyboard-tweak/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ben7799</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s absolutely zero clinical&amp;#x2F;valid evidence that Cherry MX switches do a shred of anything for RSI.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s all hype.  There&amp;#x27;s nothing medical behind any of it.&lt;p&gt;I find the extra key travel of those switches fatigues my fingers&amp;#x2F;arms far more and makes me feel far more like I&amp;#x27;m going to have RSI.&lt;p&gt;I did have full blown RSI, and ditching mechanical keyboards was a key part of getting past it.   Now that&amp;#x27;s just my anecdote, there&amp;#x27;s no evidence the mechanical switches are actually worse.  But there&amp;#x27;s no evidence they&amp;#x27;re better either.&lt;p&gt;No one knows whether it&amp;#x27;s hard rebound or key travel or anything that actually causes the issues.   And different RSIs are totally different.    It&amp;#x27;s possible Mechanical switches could be better for carpal tunnel but worse for tendinitis or vise versa.  But it doesn&amp;#x27;t seem like it has been studied.&lt;p&gt;My experience with medical treatment was doctors and PTs don&amp;#x27;t even know what the different types of keyboard switches are at all.   They know about desk positioning and ergonomic shaped keyboards but switch type was not something that they had any advice on.</text></item><item><author>flylikeabanana</author><text>I find it really odd that the OP is staring down the barrel of an RSI that&amp;#x27;s going to inexorably lock them (presumably) out of their career and passion, but the learning curve for a proper ergonomic keyboard seemed to high. I was up to an acceptable 40WPM on the Ergodox a week after switching, and his complaints about &amp;quot;&lt;i&gt;the&lt;/i&gt; Cherry MX&amp;quot; switches fall a little flat since there&amp;#x27;s about a dozen different kinds, all with different noise and tactile characteristics.&lt;p&gt;I just can&amp;#x27;t fathom all that unused space on my desk (two halves of two keyboards, going totally unused!) when the investment in some natural-feeling typing infrastructure was relatively small given how much pain I&amp;#x27;ve avoided, and will continue to avoid.&lt;p&gt;Edit: clearer word order</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>markdeloura</author><text>This subthread highlights one of the things that seems true about RSI: what works for you may not work for me. 
I find that having longer key travel works better for me - typing on laptop boards or those shallow Mac keyboards tears up my forearms. I use Cherry switches without the tactile bump and they work great for me.</text></comment>
<story><title>Using two keyboards at once for pain relief</title><url>https://symboliclogic.io/years-of-pain-solved-by-really-obvious-keyboard-tweak/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ben7799</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s absolutely zero clinical&amp;#x2F;valid evidence that Cherry MX switches do a shred of anything for RSI.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s all hype.  There&amp;#x27;s nothing medical behind any of it.&lt;p&gt;I find the extra key travel of those switches fatigues my fingers&amp;#x2F;arms far more and makes me feel far more like I&amp;#x27;m going to have RSI.&lt;p&gt;I did have full blown RSI, and ditching mechanical keyboards was a key part of getting past it.   Now that&amp;#x27;s just my anecdote, there&amp;#x27;s no evidence the mechanical switches are actually worse.  But there&amp;#x27;s no evidence they&amp;#x27;re better either.&lt;p&gt;No one knows whether it&amp;#x27;s hard rebound or key travel or anything that actually causes the issues.   And different RSIs are totally different.    It&amp;#x27;s possible Mechanical switches could be better for carpal tunnel but worse for tendinitis or vise versa.  But it doesn&amp;#x27;t seem like it has been studied.&lt;p&gt;My experience with medical treatment was doctors and PTs don&amp;#x27;t even know what the different types of keyboard switches are at all.   They know about desk positioning and ergonomic shaped keyboards but switch type was not something that they had any advice on.</text></item><item><author>flylikeabanana</author><text>I find it really odd that the OP is staring down the barrel of an RSI that&amp;#x27;s going to inexorably lock them (presumably) out of their career and passion, but the learning curve for a proper ergonomic keyboard seemed to high. I was up to an acceptable 40WPM on the Ergodox a week after switching, and his complaints about &amp;quot;&lt;i&gt;the&lt;/i&gt; Cherry MX&amp;quot; switches fall a little flat since there&amp;#x27;s about a dozen different kinds, all with different noise and tactile characteristics.&lt;p&gt;I just can&amp;#x27;t fathom all that unused space on my desk (two halves of two keyboards, going totally unused!) when the investment in some natural-feeling typing infrastructure was relatively small given how much pain I&amp;#x27;ve avoided, and will continue to avoid.&lt;p&gt;Edit: clearer word order</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wishinghand</author><text>Who are you responding to? Above comment said nothing about Cherry MX for RSI. Neither did the article&amp;#x27;s author.</text></comment>