<p>I have moderate carpal tunnel exacerbated by a ganglion cyst that sits on the median nerve of my right hand. I've been thinking about learning shorthand for notes. Right now my hand is usually numb by the end of class and wakes me up several times during the night. I use my netbook as much as possible, but as a math major it isn't all that useful in most classes.</p>
<p>Does anyone use shorthand and if so which type?</p>
<p>I have a neuropathy with my hands as well as carpal tunnel, but thankfully I can type well enough to keep up with my classes. My issues cause dysgraphia to the extent that I can’t hold a pencil, so I don’t use shorthand. I totally understand your gripes with math, I had a really hard time with math classes because I couldn’t use my computer to type.</p>
<p>In addition to learning a shorthand technique if that works for you (the only kind I know of I feel like would be really hard to do math with), I would also look into seeing if your condition would qualify you for accommodations out of the schools disabilities office. For math and Spanish I had a note taker, either someone gave the professor a copy of their notes to give to me or the disabilities office provided professors with carbon paper to give to someone for me. Nobody but the professor ever knew it was me that got the notes, since it was all through the professor, and all I had to do was have a letter from my doctor on file in the disabilities office. That might help you as well if you find you are struggling to keep up with the lecture or decipher your notes. Lots of people end up having to do that, I have met many more people in college than I expected with dysgraphia.</p>
<p>I have issues with dysgraphia as well. I can’t even believe how bad my writing has gotten, and it gets worse every semester. I have to stop periodically during tests to rest my hand. I compensate by writing larger, but even that isn’t helping anymore. I take 1 - 2 full pages for every single math problem. </p>
<p>I ordered some gregg shorthand stuff, but I don’t think it will help. I don’t think it really reduces how much you use your hand, just makes writing faster.</p>
<p>I’ll talk to my doctor about getting a note. He suggested surgery, but I’m not in love with that idea at all.</p>
<p>I hope I don’t have to resort to having a note taker. I’m a visual/kinesthetic learner, so the note taking part is really important to me.</p>
<p>I do the same, my writing gets larger and larger the longer I write as it becomes more difficult, but it’s still completely illegible these days even to me. I’ve been this way since birth, and we can’t figure out what caused the neuropathy or if there’s a way to treat it. I attempt my own notes and use the notetakers notes to supplement when I can’t read mine or if I had to cut myself short from pain or numbnesss, because I am the same way. If I haven’t written it myself I don’t remember it. You may also find it useful to record the audio from your lectures so you can listen to them in shorter sections of time to add to your notes and make them more thorough, I started doing that last semester as well. Between the audio recorder, the notetaker, and my own attempts I think I’ve got about a complete picture, though math is just going to be hard no matter what I think. Somebody really needs to make a good, cheap program for taking notes quickly in math. I personally have dyscalculia as well, so math was brutally hard to begin with even without not having any notes to use.</p>
<p>Good luck with everything. I know it can be really frustrating when your hands just can’t seem to keep up with your mind.</p>
<p>I suggest buying a tablet pc; it’s a lot easier to type with them. Also, i recommend learning how to crack your wrists. I’m not a doctor but I’ve heard other suffers say their doctors told them to crack their wrists to relieve the pressure. I have fairly moderate carpal and cracking my wrists has helped a lot. I used to do be quite the martial artist and part of my training was to do pushups on my fingers…not the healthiest thing for my wrists, I soon found out. The most common way is to rotate your wrists clockwise/anti-clockwise such that your wrists make a small cracking sound upon every rotation. This method is OK but I’ve found a much better way.</p>
<p>Here’s how I go about cracking my right hand; you can obviously do the opposite for the other hand:</p>
<p>Wrap your index or middle finger–whichever is more comfortable given your wrist size–and your thumb around your right hand such that the tips of your finger and thumb are touching. Now you need to move your finger and thumb position slightly. The tip of your left index finger should lie on the middle your right wrist where you middle and ring finger joints meet. Your left thumb should rest on the base of your right thumb’s joint. Now, squeeze your left hand; this should cause your right index finger to push down/in, and your thumb and index finger should move towards each other. You should hear a crack with enough pressure, but if not, then move your finger positions slightly until it works. It takes a little trial and error to find the best spot.</p>
<p>After doing this for a few years, I can honestly say my hands are feeling better. If my directions are hard to understand there might be a youtube video about it (I invented this on my own, so you might be out of luck). Feel free to ask me for further detail.</p>
<p>I second the suggestion to try and get accommodations through the disabilities office.</p>
<p>In the meantime, have you tried typing math with LaTeX? It takes a little while to get used to, but after a semester of practice I can now type my math homework faster than I can write it out by hand.</p>
<p>I’ve been looking into LaTeX. I also have Dragon and there is software that is available to work with Dragon called Math Talk that I would like to check out. Unfortunately Math Talk is a few hundred dollars that I don’t know if I can afford.</p>
<p>Some colleges have grants available for students with disabilities to obtain assistive technology. It’s a stretch, but if that’s what it comes down to it’s worth asking.</p>