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vamsi pavan mahesh gunturu
vamsi pavan mahesh gunturu

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Disable your trackpad for better ergonomics

TLDR: Disabling the trackpad and getting an external mouse is the least effort thing that you can do to improve your ergonomics.

I have recently switched to a 13-inch Macbook Pro from the 2014 model 15.6 MBP.

If you may have noticed, the trackpad area is huge in this machine, which lead to an unnatural posture for me when typing.

It's been a month I have been using this machine and I started developing ulnar pain between my pinky and wrist. I googled about this, and just to add to my anxiety, the results that came were related to carpal tunnel syndrome.

I was in disbelief, how can this happen in under a month? I asked in a popular slack channel where devs hang out, regarding this. At least 5 people suggested that it might be due to unnatural posture. And suggested me to get an external keyboard, mouse, and monitor. And I do have to those things with me, but just in a different city, as I moved over to my parent's place at the beginning of this pandemic with just my laptop.

While I made some arrangements to have that stuff sent back to me, I got a temporary mouse meanwhile. And disabled the trackpad on the laptop so that I need not worry about touching the trackpad.

I took a day off, and have been using this setup for 2 days. My pain is gone. I just wanted to share this because some of you who are reading this, might have experienced this. Disabling the trackpad and getting an external mouse is the least effort thing that you can do to improve your ergonomics.

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