Pain Experiment - Lets see how bad it gets :)

I have suffered from "RSI" (TMS) from overuse of the computer for over a year now and got it when I was 17. Now 10 minutes of gaming to me causes pain which is why I haven't played computer games for over a year since I got TMS. But I decided to try something...

First of all while meditating I decided to imagine myself playing a game. Within seconds boom, I had pain and I wasn't even physically moving. The pain was 20% as painful as the "real" thing but it was still there and caused by imagining myself performing the painful activity.

Then I thought... Ok, If I play a racing game for 10 minutes my left arm becomes sore "because" I am holding my thumb on the accelerometer. The pain will last approximately 1-2 hours after I am done. Well, yes I become sore but what happens if I keep going... How sore will I get? I decided to find out even though my psychologist told me not to play for more than 5 minutes at a time

So I got out my ps3 controller, Booted up Gran Turismo 4 (2005 racing game), Turned on the audiobook "The Divided Mind" to listen to as I played and decided to play "non-stop" (a 1 minute break every 5 minutes) for almost 1 hour. By 10 minutes the usual pain build up to its usual peak (by this point I usually stop) in my right upper arm and shoulder. It was there "because" I was constantly holding my thumb on the accelerometer.

"Well there is the horrible pain" I thought. "But how bad will it get if I continue". After 30 minutes... same pain, no worse, no better. After 40 minutes... "Maybe I should stop now". Then I heard in the book about the body choosing a different symptom to distract you with if the original one doesnt work anymore.

After 45 minutes my right arm suddenly went numb, felt relaxed and 80% of the pain was gone. "Fantastic" I thought. "Now whats my body gunna do?". Boom, Suddenly without any warning my left thumb and surrounding area which moves side to side to control the car was now in pain. "Ah, Good try!" I thought. I didn't let it go far though and instead relaxed knowing it was TMS.

The pain then moved side to side from my right shoulder to my left hand and then became even at about 50% of the original should pain in both. Well, I stopped playing at this point because I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere. All that was happening was my body was trying as many distractions as possible to get me to stop playing and rest my hands. I can ignore the pain and know its TMS rather than physical but that's not exactly resolving the problem... It's simply once again making me bury the emotional cause of the issue and ignore it because with this in mind it no longer majorly effects me.

Still, Its worrying. I don't want to damage myself and that little experiment took quite a lot out of me. Even worse is the fact that I am now typing this in pain right after the experiment.

What do you think of this? A true sign that this is only TMS and that RSI really doesn't exist and is not involved?

 

This sounds like great news to me!

Think about how strong the human body is...for centuries people did a lot of work with their hands. Things that are now done with machines like sewing, metal work , gardening, etc. were all done by hand for hours at a time. People never had RSI. Why should we now get injured playing video games or typing?

 

Even better is that 70% of the pain is now gone after that session... 15 minutes after typing that and I am all ready almost recovered