Good afternoon, all. I've been lurking on this forum for years while on my TMS journey, and I'm at a point where I feel like I need some input rather than going at it alone, which has been my M.O. for the most part.
Long story (hopefully) short: I'm a court reporter by trade. In September of 2019, during a particularly brutal court session with self-represented family law litigants, I noticed a burning and generally tight sensation along the pinky side of my right hand along with some numbness. Having never dealt with any chronic pain before, I went the work comp route, and it was probably the most dehumanizing experience I've had in my life. After navigating that awful process for about a month, I got taken off work, had an EMG done, and met with a hand surgeon in January of '20. The EMG revealed mild slowing in not just the ulnar nerve that had been bothering me but in the medial nerve.... and it showed it in both arms/hands despite only my right at the time being symptomatic. Sure enough, despite being off of work and diligently doing as little as possible with my hands, wearing braces, and doing PT, symptoms slowly started in the left mirroring the right. I still to this day have never had any classical carpal tunnel symptoms despite the EMG.. it's always the pinky side that's bothering me.
This test result was one of the most confounding things I'd encountered in my life, and coupled with the meeting with the hand surgeon (your hands are fine; don't even get a second opinion; if you take a handful of people off the street, half would have abnormal findings with no symptoms), it led me to the TMS world. I read a lot of the books, and I had an appointment with Dr. Stracks in May of '20, shortly after COVID exploded. He diagnosed TMS, agreed with the surgeon re: the EMG and its findings being unrelated to my pain, and advised that I should consider how to make my work a place where I can thrive. I have yet to find that, unfortunately. It's a very difficult job, and when the standard is as close to 100% accuracy as possible, it's difficult to shed the perfectionism that I know is enraging part of me.
Regardless, at some point a few months after going back to work (still in pain but in both hands), the symptoms on the right totally resolved, and the ones on the left started to crawl up to my neck and shoulders. I don't know if it was simply the new focus or getting into TMS methods, but it worked for me. I kept working full time (and have to this day). I have been limiting myself, though, from doing the most physically intense work out there. I'm in a rural county where multi-day trials are very rare. I very much want to do the most physically intense work (also most lucrative), and to that end I started pushing myself by practicing hard in my time out of court. I felt like I was getting some confidence back, and all of a sudden, the week before July 4 of this year, I woke up and started getting the exact same symptoms in the right again (numbness, that same feeling of tightness, etc.). I've had times where it's felt like it wanted to break through on my right again but it never had to that point, and I took it as a massive setback and it shook my confidence in the diagnosis. And that brings me to now.
I'm back to being mostly confident, and I'm pushing myself again. There is one thing that a PA said to me that sticks in my mind, and I wanted to get input on it. He cautioned against pushing past the pain at the risk of re-injuring my hand. It sounded ridiculous to me at the time and it still does especially in light of how I recovered the first time while pushing past the pain by necessity. Until the pain/sensations are gone I am always going to have to push myself past some amount of pain. Lately my evidence log is a lot of: "Poor night of sleep, pain/sensations higher than usual. Spent all morning practicing at high speeds, and by noon, pain/sensations minimal." I'll get a good boost and feel good for a few days or however long, and as soon as a potentially heavy week is coming up or a lot of life happening, the focus on the symptoms ramps up and the cycle will start again. But that instance recently of resolved pains coming back really messed with me.
Allll of that said, what do you all think of this idea of 'pushing past the pain'? It has generally been a good thing for me with that one exception, and I guess I'm looking for reassurance that it's a good way to move forward. Thank you all for this resource.. it has got me through some very tough days.
Long story (hopefully) short: I'm a court reporter by trade. In September of 2019, during a particularly brutal court session with self-represented family law litigants, I noticed a burning and generally tight sensation along the pinky side of my right hand along with some numbness. Having never dealt with any chronic pain before, I went the work comp route, and it was probably the most dehumanizing experience I've had in my life. After navigating that awful process for about a month, I got taken off work, had an EMG done, and met with a hand surgeon in January of '20. The EMG revealed mild slowing in not just the ulnar nerve that had been bothering me but in the medial nerve.... and it showed it in both arms/hands despite only my right at the time being symptomatic. Sure enough, despite being off of work and diligently doing as little as possible with my hands, wearing braces, and doing PT, symptoms slowly started in the left mirroring the right. I still to this day have never had any classical carpal tunnel symptoms despite the EMG.. it's always the pinky side that's bothering me.
This test result was one of the most confounding things I'd encountered in my life, and coupled with the meeting with the hand surgeon (your hands are fine; don't even get a second opinion; if you take a handful of people off the street, half would have abnormal findings with no symptoms), it led me to the TMS world. I read a lot of the books, and I had an appointment with Dr. Stracks in May of '20, shortly after COVID exploded. He diagnosed TMS, agreed with the surgeon re: the EMG and its findings being unrelated to my pain, and advised that I should consider how to make my work a place where I can thrive. I have yet to find that, unfortunately. It's a very difficult job, and when the standard is as close to 100% accuracy as possible, it's difficult to shed the perfectionism that I know is enraging part of me.
Regardless, at some point a few months after going back to work (still in pain but in both hands), the symptoms on the right totally resolved, and the ones on the left started to crawl up to my neck and shoulders. I don't know if it was simply the new focus or getting into TMS methods, but it worked for me. I kept working full time (and have to this day). I have been limiting myself, though, from doing the most physically intense work out there. I'm in a rural county where multi-day trials are very rare. I very much want to do the most physically intense work (also most lucrative), and to that end I started pushing myself by practicing hard in my time out of court. I felt like I was getting some confidence back, and all of a sudden, the week before July 4 of this year, I woke up and started getting the exact same symptoms in the right again (numbness, that same feeling of tightness, etc.). I've had times where it's felt like it wanted to break through on my right again but it never had to that point, and I took it as a massive setback and it shook my confidence in the diagnosis. And that brings me to now.
I'm back to being mostly confident, and I'm pushing myself again. There is one thing that a PA said to me that sticks in my mind, and I wanted to get input on it. He cautioned against pushing past the pain at the risk of re-injuring my hand. It sounded ridiculous to me at the time and it still does especially in light of how I recovered the first time while pushing past the pain by necessity. Until the pain/sensations are gone I am always going to have to push myself past some amount of pain. Lately my evidence log is a lot of: "Poor night of sleep, pain/sensations higher than usual. Spent all morning practicing at high speeds, and by noon, pain/sensations minimal." I'll get a good boost and feel good for a few days or however long, and as soon as a potentially heavy week is coming up or a lot of life happening, the focus on the symptoms ramps up and the cycle will start again. But that instance recently of resolved pains coming back really messed with me.
Allll of that said, what do you all think of this idea of 'pushing past the pain'? It has generally been a good thing for me with that one exception, and I guess I'm looking for reassurance that it's a good way to move forward. Thank you all for this resource.. it has got me through some very tough days.
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