Computer Keyboard Hand Pain, Year 2020 (Left Forearm Hurts)

Left Forearm Hurts

My left forearm hurts. Repetitive Strain Injury due to typing. Had this vague pain since 2018 and is still ongoing (as of 2020-05-29). There is a specific spot that hurts. The spot is near the left elbow, about 1/4th down the length of forearm from elbow, and west position in the cross section circle of the forearm.

Never was able to pinpoint the exact cause. But i suspect it's pressing the key 3 too much (that's the key roughly above e on QWERTY layout. ). In xah fly keys, that key does unsplit window, which is very frequently used.

2020-05-29 I think now am sure, that my vague upper forearm pain in past 3 years, is due to two keys too much. One is the 3 key, pressed with my middle finger, to unsplit emacs panes (delete-other-windows) , the other is using pinky to press CapsLock too much. The capslock is used for xah-fly-command-mode-activate in Emacs: Xah Fly Keys .

• Been pressing the key 3 for 10 years, since about 2008, when ErgoEmacs Mode began.
• Been pressing the CapsLock for 7 years, since 2013, when xah fly keys began.

I know they are the cause, because when the pinky pushes capslock, or the index finger presses 3, the muscle moves in the spot of pain. I can feel the muscle move by placing my right hand fingers on the pain spot. When key 3 is pressed, the spot is center of the pain spot. When key CapsLock is pressed, the spot is a bit off center of the pain spot.

Solution

There are 2 solutions.

1. Change keybinding for those frequently used commands, so that i do not have to press 3 or capslock much.
2. Change the way i press those keys. Instead of moving finger, try not move finger. Imagine the fingers are immovable like cast iron, move whole hand instead.

Added new keys so unsplit window. Fix my RSI that's killing my left hand.

(defun xah-xfk-add ()
    "addon for `xah-fly-command-mode-activate-hook'
Version 2020-04-09"
    (interactive)
    (xah-fly--define-keys
     xah-fly-key-map
     '(
       ;; the first element of cons cell is dvorak key
       ("3" . nil )
       ("4" . nil )
       ("-" . delete-other-windows)
       ("\\" . split-window-below)
       ("]" . delete-other-windows)
       ("[" . split-window-below ))))

• The left square bracket key is for Kinesis Advantage2 Keyboard.
• The dash key is for normal keyboard, my Ultimate Hacking Keyboard.

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