Ah, I'm sorry to hear that...
Lowering the difficulty will make these gear puzzles easier. You can lower the difficulty to 0.5, clear the puzzle, then raise it back to 1 if you'd like.
If you look at the keybinds in the settings menu, you'll see keys corresponding to the "Spin up" and "Spin down" actions. These keys can be used instead of the mouse wheel (or even in combination with the mouse wheel if you want to make it even easier).
The sign at the first gear puzzle does mention this, but I'll be adding hint events to re explain this at every gear puzzle if needed.
Sorry again, and I hope this helps!