Typing Gloves: Handeze Lycra compression gloves may have been the first but are not the only
Though I've long suffered from wrist pain (starting in 2001), I've only found one thing that has helped me: compression gloves:
Note that these provide no support, just compression. They don't help everyone, but they do help me. Over the years I've purchased at least 10 of these, because they do wear out. I was first introduced to them as the "handeze med-a-likra" (a dumber name is hard to imagine, but yes there is one read on). The source was a well-respected mac oriented "blog" called tidbits. They sounded like snake oil but I was desperate and as it turns out they helped me immensely. But in a notable counter-example, they didn't help my dad at all; only about half the people I've shared them with have benefited, but they definitely work for that half.
The design is certainly unique: the glove is fingerless and has only 4 holes (middle and ring share one opening). The compression is primarily for the hand itself, the cuff (black in the photo) is much less tight. I've often wondered why they might help; is it really the compression, or might it be just a gentile warming effect? At this point I'm pretty sure it's the compression since as these wear out they become much less tight and are less effective at that point. If it really is the compression, why would that be good? If anything compression should be bad since many theories of RSI wrist pain suggest that it's all due to swelling due to inflammation or overwork. I am pretty sure it's not placebo effect, as I was super skeptical when I purchased these the first time and almost didn't give them the try they deserved (I saw improvements in 24 hours).
Over the years the Handeze brand has been available but sold by different companies, most recently "DOME" whomever the heck that is. The only real innovation was introducing a flesh colored version which is super ugly especially once it gets a little stained as I can assure you it will.
But recently I've noticed several other gloves which seem to be either exact replicas or rebranding from the same factory. The details are amazingly close, from the sizing chart to how they are packaged (including the seemingly useless discardable cardboard inserts.
And as promised the names are just as bad, if not worse than the original.
Here's the Thergonomic hand-aids, a phrase which literally hurt my hands to type:
Given the uniformly bizarre names for these products it's not a stretch to think the same person came up with them. Or maybe it's all just copy the leader. Each brand comes in various colors so there's actually a tiny bit of reason to prefer one over the other.
I wonder if there's more that I've missed?
Meanwhile I've tried these decidedly different looking gloves and they are useless, despite looking fairly similar in terms of compression offered:
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