Struggling with Ergonomics

What's going on?

So the last 8 months or so I've tried to use the computer less, I've been dealing with what I think are a result of repetitive strain injury issues, I imagine years of bad posture, poor ergonomics, and long hours in front of my PC have caught up with me. In response, I've tried to use the computer less, I slowed down my gaming, cut back on being at my desk anything to prevent me from doing things to aggravate my issues. usage but that hasn't helped much as both my IRL job, my contract work, and my personal life, all tend to exist around using a PC.

My issues come in a few shapes and sizes, but the one that's hurt the most is money. First, let's go over what I'm struggling with.

First, in 2022 the hardware that holds the chair to the gas-lift was starting to bend, causing a lean to the right, likely due to applying too much force when leaning on the chair. I don't claim to be a small guy, I'm 6 foot 6+ and I definitely don't use my chair gingerly, a chair I get has to be able to withstand a beating. This tends to be something I've seen in plenty of chairs including the ones at my IRL job so it's a common issue, office chairs can be surprisingly fragile. Due to this lean, I started having issues with my back hurting. At this point, I removed the whole hardware from my chair and placed it onto a wooden crate I had laying around. This solved the issue with the chair leaning, and over time my back issues started to go away. However, this only began to introduce new issues due to the crate not being as tall as the gas lift could go.

Soon I started experiencing severe shoulder and elbow pain, due to needing to lift my arms up to use my desk. My current solution has been to craft a lap-board out of old laminate flooring. This lets me keep my keyboard on my lap, it's not ideal as it needs to be closer to me than I think I should have it, at work I also struggle with this and bringing my lap-board to work is a challenge and I likely need to bring my own wireless keyboard and mouse. I also find that over time it starts to slip off my lap causing me to need to adjust it regularly which is not ideal.

Finally, I've been experiencing massive pain in my right arm so I assume this is mostly due to using my mouse, unfortunately, I know that I do tend to grip my mouse too tightly during intense gaming so that is probably a major issue, and is why I've cut back on my gaming, but this doesn't stop me from needing to use a mouse at work, or for my contract work, or making my game. All these things are stuff I use a mouse for. So in the meantime I got a cheap vertical mouse to see if that would help. I wasn't even sure if I'd like a vertical mouse or be able to get used to a vertical mouse. It was a $20 no-name brand, I got what I paid for unfortunately, it has a really bad sensor in it, the sensor has very low DPI so it's not sensitive to small movements at all. I need to move it a half inch just to get it to register that it's moving.

Cost problems

Based on the above you'll probably have noticed something, a lot of my "fixes" involve me using what I have lying around and improvising. My chair lives on a wooden crate, I took some old leftover laminate flooring to use as a lapboard, or just... not using the computer which again means not doing any kind of work, doing anything fun, and giving up my social life.

So you might be asking why I would do go through all this? It's never been a real secret that I don't have a lot of money, the main reason I manage to get by is through help from friends and relatives, I couldn't live on my own with my current job. The job I have is overall very good in terms of workload, but the pay is lower than my past jobs, and I struggle to get hours due to some other external factors. This all leads to me not really having a lot of exra money hanging around to buy things. This leads me to try and be extra resourceful and use what I do have for things. I'm very DIY Because I can't afford to buy expensive things.

So now I have these new health issues, so I need to buy a new chair or at least a new gas lift and hardware for the top half of my chair, a new ergonomic keyboard(maybe a split keyboard?), and a new mouse maybe a big trackball or a vertical mouse.

I feel like the main issue I'm running into is the "ergonomic" tax, which jacks the price up REALLY high, with many products starting at $80 and ranging to several hundreds of dollars for the best there is. There isn't a budget category for this kind of thing which sucks.

Chairs are always expensive, but I wish they weren't, dropping $350 for an office chair doesn't feel great, especially considering that most chairs I've had end up lasting like 5-7 years. The pleather starts to become brittle and peel, or the foam in the seat becomes slowly flat, or in the case of the last chair, the hardware just isn't strong enough to handle being slightly rough with it.

You can find fairly quality mice for cheap like a Logitech M510 offering one for under $30 but as soon as you look for an ergonomic mouse like a vertical mouse, suddenly it's 3x as much. With the Logitech Lift Vertical at $70 and the MX Vertical at $90. After using the $20 vertical mouse I know I like the shape, so I'm more willing to try and commit to that $90 vertical mouse, but now that $90 mouse is a $110 mouse just because I had to test drive a cheap version. Pain.

As for keyboards, at the low-end side of things, the Logitech K860 but $120 for a membrane keyboard is pretty steep. I've seen a lot of people recommend the Kinesis 360 for the best possible typing experience but that STARTS at $450 which seems just absolutely crazy to me I DEFINITELY can't afford that! But that got me to look at the Kinesis Freestyle, a split keyboard with mechanical switches for $200, which gives me the split with tenting, but not the ergonomic curved layout.

In the end, I'll get by somehow, It's just been a huge reason for my recent hiatus from creating.