Hey guys! I’m a Doctor of Physical Therapy that works in gaming and esports. We’ve been helping pros and the general gaming population resolve their wrist issues by addressing underlying endurance, lifestyle and other issues (posture, ergonomics etc.) so they can play without pain.
My team (1HP) and I want to learn more about the habits and behaviors associated with gaming wrist pain.
If you could take a few minutes to help us learn more it helps us make better decisions for helping the community. Definitely very curious to see the responses! Feel free to make any remarks about your pain patterns in the comments but please include
- If you have pain
- What games you play
- What platform
- What peripheral
- Where you have pain
Edit:
Some people in the comments asked what they should be doing for repetitive strain. These guides are a great place to start. https://1-hp.org/gaming-wrist-pain/
49 Comments
Were you the doctor guy in the COD documentary?
Hey, I primarily get pain in either my low back and wrist / hands. I tend to play FPS games but recently have been getting into Elden Ring recently. This might be off topic.. but I just had a question about chairs and desks?
I have a secretlab chair that feels a bit worse for my back but seems to help alleviate my wrist and hand discomfort but I also have an office chair that helps with my lower back pain but makes my wrist and hand discomfort feel worse
Any thoughts?
People really don’t understand how important this shit is, thank you for helping the community out
I had pain before. Not anymore because there is a solution. Play with a dance mat controller.
FF14. Monk.
I have tendonitis in both my wrists due to being an artist with no sense of work-life balance, so yeah, pain happens.
1. Yes
2. RPGs, cozy games, puzzle games
3. All, but usually Switch these days.
4. Pain always happens when using a mouse. I have to use a controller to play comfortably, and definitely need to avoid one with buttons that are too curved. I tend to press buttons with the joint rather than the pads of my thumb, so little buttons that put pressure in a small area are a problem!
5. Wrists, thumb joints
I had to give up Minecraft on my PC because it just refused to act normal when using any non-standard mouse. Dunno if it’s still like that since I lost my password ages ago, but I tried SO many kinds of mice (trackpads, trackballs, etc etc) over a period of several years and nothing ever worked right. Just baffling. I’ve made a few attempts at getting into some shooters, but I can’t really handle it. It’s not so much that the pain is immediately horrible, but rather, it’s enough that I know that if I continue, I’ll do damage.
The Switch is a godsend because the joycons give me the freedom to hold the controllers any way. I have a hard time holding a controller if I’m wearing my arm braces, but the joycons??? Gotta hold em different, but I can hold them well enough to game.
The only game (or I guess mode) that I get pain when playing is Fortnite Festival. Basically, it’s rockband. I play on PlayStation 4, and I have pain in my fingers/upper hand when playing.
I think this is because I’m moving my hands way too fast in a more awkward position as after a bit the pain does go away. And the pain is more like soreness. So not serious (I think).
I have wrist pain I play baldurs gate 3 on Xbox using Xbox controller the pain is from excessive masturbation to the game images of naked Lae’Zel and Shadowheart. Sometime Halsin but don’t tell anyone cuz I’m not gay. I hope that helps your study.
Fighting games that call for extensive combos definitely cause pain in my wrist if I go hard an hour+. Thinking Injustice, Street Fighter type games. Xbox Series X is when I last played one.
I previously had pain from playing OSU. Stopped playing / stopped the repetitive movements from osu and have let my wrists heal.
I play on PC and was using a razer huntsman keyboard and razer deathadder mouse at the time.
I had burning pain down my wrists and the back of my hands coming from my pointer and middle fingers of each hand
No serious long-term pain, but I did notice that I was hurting myself by playing PowerWash Simulator with a mouse. (Kind of ironic, given the game’s reputation for being especially relaxing.) Eventually I figured out that I was applying pressure to the left mouse button for far longer periods of time than I was used to (the nature of the game is that you’re pretty much continuously blasting the powerwasher). Plus, I suspect I was subconsciously squeezing the mouse button down harder than I needed to, as though that would increase the pressure of the wash. I found that switching to a handshake-style ergonomic mouse helped.
Also, a nod to the original Metal Gear Solid, whose famous torture scene involves a button-mashing minigame that is arguably intended to induce some degree of physical pain in the player. The game even invites you to massage your arm with the vibrating controller afterward. I always found it impossible to move my fingers fast enough, and I figured out that the best technique for tapping the button fast enough involved deliberately tensing all the muscles in my arm at once. This would cause a natural quivering response that I could harness to very rapidly move my hand up and down at the wrist — and sure enough, it left my triceps feeling rather sore afterward.
I actually have a good one for this!
I played StarCraft 2 in Masters for 5-6 years.
It requires 100-200 APM roughly to maintain during the 10-20 minute matches.
Mouse and Keyboard
My left wrist got stiff, hurt, small shooting pains at certain angles. Etc
I quit SC2 and it went away after a few months of the wall stretches for hands I saw online.
Granted the games dead, many games that require the same positionings on MnK are alive and well.
Diablo series = speed run to an RSI.
I developed repetitive strain injury from playing fifa last year on the PS5, I can no longer play the game and to be safe won’t be using controllers anymore and I am moving to PC gaming, I get pain in the thenar region of the palm and when I move my thumb it feels crunchy at the joint sometimes, had to see a doc about it. If you Google “repetitive strain injury fifa” a lot of people seem to have it.
I get thumb pain from playing Mario cart.
Pushing the button harder = going faster!
Don’t tell me otherwise.
Holding shift to sprint in any game where you’re moving around a lot with WASD has gotta be the leading cause of pinky pain. So much so that I think “toggle sprint” should be an accessibility option.
See also: Minecraft with the ctrl key bound to crouch.
1) I get occasional pain while gaming (have purchased wrist support pads for my PC and that has helped)
2) I play all sorts of games, but recently have been playing Escape from Tarkov and the Yakuza Series. FPS games, and single player adventure games are my general go to, but also like to throw in faster paced rogue-likes, etc.
3) PC player primarily, but also switch. I also have a gamepad to use for some PC games
4) Primarily keyboard and mouse, but gamepad for certain games (like Yakuza)
5) Intermittent pain (usually after longer sessions) in left wrist/lower palm area.
Mario Party N64, joystick cut my hand when I decided to use my palm to spin it for a mini game.
Two decades ago, I developed trigger thumb (stenosing flexor tenosynovitis) over a summer where I basically did nothing but work 10 hour days and play Star Ocean: Til the End of Time. It was Star Ocean that did it. PS2 RPG, and the battle system involved endless mashing of the X and Square buttons with my right thumb.
Resolved when I beat the game and returned to a more human schedule.
StarCraft II and Path of Exile were the most physically painful and damaging games I’ve played.
1. Yes
2. StarCraft II and Path of Exile
3. PC
4. Keyboard and mouse obviously
5. Wrists wrists and wrists
Stopping playing these games helped immensely with how my wrists felt and any pain I felt while playing these games is pretty much gone.
It’s the massive amounts of repetitive, fast, button presses combined with bad posture and lack of stretching before playing.
Professional StarCraft players take wrist damage pretty seriously, and there’s definitely a history of many professional StarCraft players either retiring or quitting the game entirely due to wrist damage suffered from playing and practicing so much.
Clash Royale or Smite cause I’ll run myself into the ground chasing a dub but end up with 10 straight losses. I just wanna suffer I guess
Elden ring with controller. It is difficult to run and control the camera so my hands always ended up in a weird position.
World of Warcraft. Fury Warrior.
Maybe not much use to you but I will mention.
I have cubital tunnel syndrome in my left elbow, Dupuytren’s contracture in left hand, and severe carpal tunnel syndrome in my right wrist. I cannot afford any sort of corrective surgeries (and I’ve heard the cure rates are abysmal and the recovery is very painful as well.) I type for a living and can’t afford to not be able to work, either.
No matter what mouse or mousepad setup I try, playing anything that requires me to use my right hand for long periods of time causes intense burning pain and numbness as well as “trigger finger” where my index finger gets locked into place curled up and won’t move. Thanks to Dupuytren’s I have almost no sensation in my left pinky and ring fingers.
It is frustrating to me sometimes that so many games are entirely mouse-dependent and offer few “accessibility” options for players with pain related to hands/wrists/elbows, or have mechanics (such as repeated fast clicking) that cause pain.
Do I have pain? Yes
Games I play: Elder Scrolls Online, World of Warcraft, The Witcher 3, Fallout 4, Skyrim, Baldur’s Gate 3
Time played: usually 3 to 5 hours per day
Platform: PC
Peripheral: Redragon and Viper gaming mice (currently Viper V570 with adjustable weights) using a Logitech mousepad, Unicomp Model M mechanical keyboard (full size) with gel wrist rest. Leather desk office chair, wooden computer desk.
Where I have pain: Right hand and wrist, left hand and arm
My ass hurts after sitting too much
Guitar Hero my hand would cramp up and even shoulder sometimes
That seems interesting. I was thinking about talking about some thumb pain with my doctor just the other day.
I usually just play JRPGs and platformers on the Switch. For these, after about a week or so gaming, I start having some cramps and itching on my right thumb and wrist. I imagine it has something to do with quick abrupt movements
A lot of finger and hand blisters from playing ps1 dragon ball games.
Any game that doesn’t have controller support now.
The perpetrator that caused the spiral into carpal tunnel was using mouse and keyboard in Path of Exile, along with my own previously poor posture. Too much clicking for too long of a time.
Gears of war 4 and 5 because how repetitive and cringe it made me feel.
Overcooked,felt like an episode of hell’s kitchen
Competitive games always.
Hello fellow therapist! I’m an OT who’s also into gaming and used to do hand therapy. For me, i guess a decade of playing Dota2 causes my wrists to hurt when resting it down for a long time, not like carpal tunnel but more on the prominent bony parts. I haven’t played in over two years tho. Nowadays I mostly use a controller for games, and have occasional pain in my thumbs by the CMC joint, likely from moving the joysticks.
The only game that keeps giving me pain when I play it is Osu. I can never play it for more than half an hour because my hand starts to hurt because of the constant y and x mashing.
Starfield. Should speak for itself.
1. Yes. Used to have it
2. Used to play flight sims and first person shooters
3. Tablets
4. Used to have temporary short burst of pain when I would play first person shooters. Especially when using more two fingers to control.
5. The pain would show in areas between the thumb and index. Sometimes pain on the pinky one idfk.
Not me personally but my brother plays eldin ring and punched through his desk once and hurt his hand pretty good.
Red Dead Redemption 2, mashing the A button on my controller when riding or running caused a lot of pain in my lower hand after a while. It’s partly the reason I haven’t replayed it, that and the fact it wore out my A button and I had to buy a new controller.
Thumbs, vampire survivors, switch handheld mode.
tekken. i have to take a break between rounds to stop my hands from aching.
Never had any discomfort in my hands or wrists while gaming until a few years ago. Bought the PS5 and almost immediately started having mild discomfort after longer sessions. Cramping for the most part. After a while the sessions became shorter and shorter until the discomfort kicked in. Eventually playing shooters like CoD began causing mild pain in my hands and wrists and had to stop playing shooters. Then it got to the point where I I just couldn’t play anything for more than 30 minutes at a time.
Thought maybe it was just me but on a whim I hooked up the Xbox One because I had the urge to play Fallout New Vegas and discovered not only did I not have the pain or cramping I could have marathon sessions. I’m convinced it was the dualsense. I had never had an issue before and as long as I’m not using that controller im fine.
A few months later ended up just getting a Series X and the PS5 became blu ray player for the bedroom because I just can’t play it without being uncomfortable.
1. Sometimes
2. Tekken 7 and 8
3. PC
4. Keyboard
5. Usually wrists
Note: This happens when I try to execute a lot of inputs in practice mode.
League of legends in the past because I’ve slammed both of my hands on my table because I was frustrated with my teammates
Beat saber.
1. I have lasting pain when and only when I play Path of Exile. Sometimes I get mild pain in ring and pinky finger if I play action/intense games on a controller for too long, but it goes away after putting down the controller.
2. I play a wide variety of games, and ARPGs are one of my favourite genres. I have thousands of hours in the genre, and I have only encountered pain with Path of Exile.
3. I am a pc gamer.
4. It occurs with mouse and keyboard.
5. I have pain in the area below the wrist, in my right arm (the arm I use for the mouse).
I believe Path of Exile specifically causes me problems because the game does not have recharge times for most of the moves, which results in constant button pushing and non-stop holding down of the mouse buttons for hours on end. I bought a wrist brace and learned some stretches from a roommate that was a hand therapist and both of those things helped, but the biggest fix was remapping the controls so that I could use the keyboard for all of the game actions and just use the mouse to aim the cursor.
An old technique in high-level tetris players called hypertapping used to cause hand and arm problems for people.
[This video](https://youtu.be/mOJlg8g8_yw?si=_7I2fH_u5ZJ82mas) starting at 25:50 shows the use of hypertapping.
Later on, this technique was superseded by rolling, which supposedly caused less hand strain. See 49:00 of the same video. It details the rolling technique which allowed faster and more comfortable button presses.
The whole video is a great watch for background info, TBH.
Slap boxing
That don’t hurt (ya gotta go for a non-headshot and if it hurts, they win the round)
Mercy
Oh and playing tag on a gravel road. Picking gravel
Put your wounds is a rite of passage
Smash bros melee. Can really feel it in my hands
I play a lot of visual novels on PC but I hook my laptop up to my TV via HDMI and play while sitting on my couch with a wireless mouse.
Since I’m not sitting at an actual desk sometimes I get finger or wrist pains from clicking through so much dialogue.