Question about rest vs exercise

Hi all

I have some lingering doubt which I'm hoping someone can help with. In Sarno's books, he makes it clear that the human body repairs itself very quickly, and grows back stronger when it's damaged. As a result, repetitive injuries are 'unadulterated nonsense', I think are the words he used...

The question is though, how long is a reasonable level of time for your body to recover? My pain is RSI type pain in my hands, particularly the thumbs. My issue is that I've never had a total period of rest through the year or so this has been going on - I think at most, I've had a week away from the computer. I work full time, and I really don't want to take any sick leave, so I've always worked 8 hours a day at the computer. I did use the computer for up to maybe 12 hours a day before my pain started, so I am using the computer less, but still quite a lot.

I think this doubt is possibly what is keeping my pain going. I keep thinking, "you've never had enough time away from the PC to recover". Is that true? I keep flitting between thinking I should rest, and that I should exercise more. I'd like to go back to lifting weights, but worried that this will slow my recovery, if indeed I do require any recovery...

Additional info - I've been checked by two specialists, and neither found anything wrong, just saying it's a soft tissue/overuse injury. Never had any swelling or anything like that. Inflammation tests came back normal. X ray showed no joint damage (most of my pain is in the joints). Waiting to see a rheumatologist to rule out rheumatoid arthritis.

 

I had the official diagnosis of RSI/carpal tunnel syndrome, and had an opportunity to give my hands 10 days of absolute rest. However, my symptoms only got worse, which confirmed that what I had was TMS. You are correct that your doubt is feeding your pain. Start focusing on your emotional work, do whatever framework you chose to do, somatic tracking or any other method offered here, and you will see improvements. By the way, I never stopped working (other than short vacations here and there) and still completely recovered from a very severe case of TMS. You can find my success story under Success Stories subforum. Best of luck!

 

Hey - thanks for your reply. I think I'm at a bit of an impasse as I've only had maybe like 5-7 days of rest since this started, and I don't know if that is long enough to heal, if I do have an injury. I might be able to get around 7 days of rest soon, but I don't know if that would be beneficial at all at this point, after being in pain for a year... I think part of the problem is that I've seen people saying things like "you need to rest for months to recover from RSI". Or even people saying that you need to rest 1 month for every 2 months you work with RSI...

I'm trying to recondition my brain away from thinking this way (wish I'd never Googled any symptoms at the start of all this) but I do wonder how much rest someone would realistically need to recover from an 'overuse' injury.

 

It's probably just some cramps

 

This is the same predicament I find myself in. I'm not sure I buy the proposition that RSIs don't exist, and that if they do, they heal as rapidly as the TMS doctors posit. Iirc, tendon issues take quite a while to heal (if that's indeed what's going on), and it's nearly impossible to let the affected body area(s) rest. I'm really trying to convince myself that my issues are purely psychosomatic, but it's extremely difficult. Wishing you well with your own healing journey

 

I think the problem for me is conflicting advice. For example, some people say you need to rest to heal tendon injuries, some say you need to exercise. I don't see how it's possible for me to rest my hands for months - I use them for everything. And again, some people say not to do this, because your muscles will atrophy... and some of those who do rest for months have their pain come back immediately when they return to using a computer. I always feel like I'm doing the wrong thing to manage this... and I guess that fuels the doubt further.

 

Cramps come and go, don't need rest for them. They hurt with stress, get better and go away when you're relaxed.

 

We're not talking about cramping.

 

I feel you. The contradictory advice makes my head spin, and it can feel like the stakes are very high. Personally, I'm going to dive back into TMS in earnest and really try to forget everything structural. Perhaps this is foolish and I will cause myself further dysfunction, but I'm at the point where I don't care because what other options are there?

 

I don't know if this will encourage you or not, but I actually had problems like these are 5 years ago, where I had constant tingling in one of my hands. At the time I was terrified I had MS and would end up disabled if I didn't get treated quickly. I ended up spending a ton of time gaming in addition to my computer work to take my mind off it, and it went away after 6 months or so. Now I have pretty much the same problems (albeit more painful) and because I've read about RSI and have connected it with that, it won't go away, because my escape (gaming) is what I assume to be the cause of it.

So I do accept TMS theory but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with I'm afraid

 

You need to stop fixating on the idea of RSI. Instead, you need to start thinking psychologically. Your pain is in your brain, not in your hands. No rest would heal it until your brain stops generating signals of fear and anxiety.

 

Thank you @TG957 I needed this today.
I know this is true. I am obsessed with my own symptoms. They are amazing getting me to fear & have massive anxiety. I need to find this path.