My Savior: 3M Ergonomic Mouse

After realizing that my trackpad caused a great deal of my repetitive stress pain, I spent an afternoon researching ergonomic mice and found one that stood out above the rest: The 3M Ergonomic Mouse.

Under its shell, the 3M is a standard red-light optical mouse, but it’s the casing that makes the difference. The body of the 3M mouse is flat, with a joystick-like projection on the top. You hold the mouse on the desk in the same way you would shake hands with someone sitting across from you. Your thumb rests on the top of the joystick-like part. Beneath your thumb are the left and right click buttons. There is also a button beneath your fingers on the grip for middle clicking.

But, and this is the key to why it works, the 3M mouse is not a joystick. The optical sensor is on the bottom so you move your whole arm to direct the pointer on the screen. I was concerned about switching to a non-standard mouse because I thought that it would have much less precise control over the pointer. Both in the creation of my webcomic, and editing my photographs, I need to move the pointer tiny amounts, sometimes only a pixel at a time. To my relief, the 3M Ergonomic Mouse can do that. Thus, I can use it as my primary mouse, and have come to prefer the way it handles over my old Microsoft optical mouse.

While the price is high, and the profit margin on it must be about 400%, I would easily pay twice as much again for the difference it has made in reducing my RSI.

Purchase the 3M Ergonomic Mouse here.