I'm a copy editor for a newspaper, which involves editing stories, adjusting type styles and writing headlines/photo captions on the computer. I despise the one-button mouse.

I'm planning to leave the job fairly soon (I hope; waiting for bar exam results), so I'm not as worried about it as I might be if this position was going to last longer.

I'm pretty sure it's not carpal tunnel syndrome, although I do also have a lot of trouble with circulation in my right (mouse-clicking) hand while I'm at work.

Thanks for your responses!

For the past year I've had a job that requires me to sit in front of a computer and use a one-button mouse for eight hours every day. I often go online when I get home and use the touchpad on my laptop. Lately I'm noticing that the index finger on my right hand, which I use to click the one-button mouse at work and on the touchpad at home, is cracking every 2 to 5 minutes. There's a tension that builds and is relieved (obviously, very temporarily) by cracking the knuckle.

I've been a knuckle-cracker since I was 14 or 15 – I swapped it out for another "bad habit." My other fingers, and until recently my index finger, have always cracked maybe once every 15 minutes.

So could this constant mouse usage be harming me somehow? I've never believed that knuckle-cracking can lead to arthrities, nor did I buy my parents' claims that I would end up with disproportionately large knuckles (and, indeed, 13 years later, my knuckles are not particularly large), but this one kind of worries me.

Has anyone else ever noticed anything like this?