This is a repost of a post I made in the chat thread about a week or two ago:
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Congratulations to me - I've made Carpal/Tunnel.
The condition that is, rather than the number of posts. Can anyone link me to the post someone made about good mice/wrist supports?
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I started to get this several years ago. Not quite to the point where I had to seek medical attention, but, I had a hard time spreading my fingers flat and couldn't make a real fist. Came on quite suddenly and was pretty scary.
The first thing you really need to do is completely reassess your work environment. In my case, most of my trouble was caused by sitting too far away from my desk. My desk at work was quite narrow and if I sat right close to my desk, my knees would hit the wall. So I was sitting far away from the desk, and having to stretch my arms out when typing. Pulling my desk about 6 inches out from the wall helped an awful lot as I could sit in close and wouldn't have to extend my arms.
I also started doing exercises at my desk, constantly, stuff like this:
http://www.carpaltunnelexercises.net
In particular, every half hour (at least) I would drop my arms to the sides of my chair and shake my hands and fingers for a minute or so to loosen everything up.
I also started squeezing a stress ball constantly (both hands, obv). Took that thing with me everywhere. You want a stress ball that gives some resistance, not one that's total mush. Use a tennis ball or rubber ball if that's all that's handy.
It took me a couple months for things to return to normal, but I haven't had a problem for at least 5 years.