Day 11 R-S-I? How about T-M-S.

[2015/05/22]
Armchair Linguist's success story really resonated with me. I developed bad wrist pain and tingling when I was in high school. It got so bad I even allowed myself to get talked into doing carpal tunnel surgery on my right wrist during college (like her, I too have used a keyboard all my life!). Unfortunately, the surgery did not help. Even now, I'm sitting here at my desk and I can feel the weird shooting tingling sensation crawl up my fingers. It gets worse with stress. Even more intriguing is this: I was a Computer Science major, and I knew that I would want to work with computers no matter what, so there was definitely a point where I said to myself "F it!" and continued using a keyboard and mouse, going about my business like normal. At first it was painful (especially at the end of the day), but what I've come to realize is that the pain has slowly decreased over the years. So yeah, I guess I've had some practice with TMS mitigation techniques without even realizing it.

 

Hi, Regrowth. You had carpal tunnel surgery and still have the wrist pain so it looks to me like your pain is not structural
but TMS psychological. You may have conditioned yourself to expect pain when you are on the computer.

But you also may need to take more breaks from the computer. If I don't take breaks from the magic box I get stressed out.
With me, it's a love-hate relationship. I am going to try to stay off the computer as much as possible this holiday weekend.

There was a power outage on my block two years ago and we were all without electricity for four days and nights.
I had a wonder time just reading books and listening to a battery-operated radio for music, and took more walks with
my darling dog. It was a vacation from technology. I may pretend there is another power outage this weekend.

For yourself, keep doing the SEP and see if you can discover a psychological cause or causes for your pain.
You may not have any repressed emotions but you may have a perfectionist-goodist personality, which often
results in TMS pain.

Good luck and keep us posted. Have a great holiday weekend and maybe give yourself a vacation from technology.

 

Thanks for your encouragement, Walt! I'm with you on the "virtual power outage," it's probably something I need to do.

Hope you have a good holiday as well.