RSI Symptoms

[jtperks]

Hello,
I'm getting to the end of my rope with my RSI symptoms because they just aren't getting any better after 3 months. My problem specifically is with my left hand/wrist. (Wierd because I'm right-handed). I sit at a computer all day, mousing and typing, but not like a wild man. I'm not a programmer or court reporter. So it's strange that I have this issue.

Anyway, the thing that probably holds me back is that my RSI symptoms aren't really pain. Yeah, there is some of that sometimes, but it's more a feeling of weakness, like it's hard to hold up my cell phone without feeling weak in the wrist/hand. It's not real clinical weakness. I can pick up heavy things all day long. It's those light weight things like a remote control or a cereal spoon. It's tough to hold down the shift button with my pinky, without it shaking. That sort of thing.

I've been to the neurologist, he is unimpressed with my weakness. He didn't want to do an EMG because he didn't think anything would show up on it. So I've been trying to go about this under the pretense that I have TMS. I've been journaling, and really trying to focus on my feelings in my writing.

But it doesn't seem to make any difference. Everyday, I just wake up and the same old weak wrist/hand is there and it's there 24/7. And I think the thing that is making me more stuck than anything is that everyone else had pain symptoms, and even though Sarno says weakness is a part of TMS, I can't tell specifically what he's talking about so I can't relate to it.

For fellow RSI sufferers, was this part of your RSI symptoms, or do I have something seriously wrong going on here?

I appreciate any and all thoughts on the matter. Thank you.

 

[Barb M.]

I have the RSI constellation of problems and do have weakness. I have pain, too, but definitely that weakness feeling. I put my phone on speaker because it is hard to hold up. It feels like it weighs 20 pounds. Sometimes picking up a glass or a cereal bowl seems like a monumental task. I've given away purses I love because they're too heavy. And I'm like you, I can go to exercise at the gym and lift weights. It's very odd.

 

[Steve Ozanich]

Your neurologist didn't want to do further testing? Get a picture of that doctor, until now I had only heard about them as urban legend.

Well, you can't really know if anything else is going on there because you didn't get the deeper testing. But you also have to rely on the neuro's experience, I suppose. It's rare. That being said, if you want to treat it as TMS then you have to get to work. You want to know if weakness is common in RSI? Yes. Weakness is common with TMS. I had foot drop so severe I couldn't raise my toe for almost a year. I dragged my leg around wherever I went (mostly because I couldn't take the leg off).

Some have told me they thought they were having a stroke because they couldn't hold things or write. In many of the cases it appeared like hysteria to me, but I can't know. How do you measure hysteria any way? With a hysterectomy?

You said you hadn't gotten better after 3 months. That is such an amazingly short time to be doing TMS healing. You're just barely getting started here. It took you a lifetime to get here, don't expect a quick turnaround or you increase the anger and frustration that is already driving your symptoms. You may not have seen any improvement because you're not doing it right yet. If the road you've chosen isn't taking you where you want to go, then find another route. Remember the definition of insanity.

Assuming you have TMS, you're doing some things wrong. First, you said you're not a wild man. Mistake #1. You have to let go more, have fun, get silly. The presence of TMS means there is anger, and that anger comes from the social reaction to any fear. (yes, I understand that you meant wild as in using your mouse.) But given those 2 elements there's something you want to do, or say, that you won't or can't, most likely because you're unaware of the magnitude of your anger/fear. You don't have to find any events or holy grails, but you do need to relax, and have more fun, let go, and feel your weakness as an emotion. Begin to see how you react to life, or more precisely, how you DO NOT react to life.

You have to slowly erase doubt; doubt that your symptom is physical in nature. Your neuro didn't do you any favors there by not helping you erase that small doubt. So, you have to begin to see your symptom as an emotional process, and stop wavering in your confidence that it might be something else.

Also, stop paying attention to your hand. Use it, but don't let it draw your attention or focus away from the deeper issue. The idea is to shift awareness from your body to your goal. The path inward is the only road to take. That becomes more complex because it deals with your unconscious desires and motivations.

There's much work to do. After year one I felt like I hadn't improved at all. But that doesn't mean you can't heal overnight, I've seen it. But that's not normal. The brain takes time to change and to lose its cynicism. If I were consulting with you I would ask you to tell me what was going on in your life when you first noticed your symptoms? Then I would ask you how happy you currently are.

Close your eyes and breathe deeply, relax your shoulders, and ask yourself, "what do I really want?...what is this symptom telling me?"

Steve

 

[Walt Oleksy (RIP 2021)]

Hi, Steve. Great advice to jtperks.
Last night I watched a terrific lecture by Deepak Chopra on PBS TV telling about his new book, THE FUTURE OF GOD.
He says science is coming closer to accepting the spiritual connection in both mental and physical health.
He stressed the importance of meditation in achieving good health and offered some meditation techniques.
I'm going to get his book and see about those techniques, since I notice many people having trouble with meditating, me included.

Hope all is going well for you. Annie and I survived the blizzard over the weekend, our 5th heaviest snow on record,
about 3 feet of snow, and it was just a few inches short of the second-worst snowstorm.
Nice neighbors cleared me out.

 

[jtperks]

Barb,

Thanks for your response. I think the scary thing is that my hands went from zero to weakness, with no real in-between. Anyway, I realized after I posted that I feel silly asking if other people have my same exact symptoms, as it shouldn’t really matter that much – TMS can basically manifest however it wants from what I understand. Anyways, I hope you get better.

 

[jtperks]

Steve,

Thanks for taking the time to write. First let me say that I loved The Great Pain Deception. Your story is pretty incredible, and it has been a tremendous help. And thank you for this advice you just gave. I shouldn’t have forgotten about the boy at the golf course that told you to never give up, when you were wanting to. That kid had some pretty solid advice, I'd say.

I think I’m at a point now where I’m essentially stalling because I keep seeking more information instead of just rolling up the sleeves and getting to work. I believe you make mention of this behavior in your book as well. I know what I need to know, it’s time to improve my strategy a bit and move forward with more confidence, and certainly more fun. Thanks again for you words.

BTW, I failed to mention -- the neuro did order a MRI for the brain, as I had/have some wierd weakness in my foot as well. He wanted to rule out MS. The MRI came back clean. That foot thing hasn't quite gone away (improving), but my worry/fear about the foot thing has. He didn't want an EMG on the wrist because he was almost positive it would have been negative based on his clinical findings. I should have insisted on it. Oh well, I'm going back in April. If it's not better by then, I'll ask for the EMG. For now, I'm going by Sarno's assumption that all RSI is basically TMS and I'm going to try my very best to not allow my mind to believe otherwise.

 

[Steve Ozanich]

Hey, you remembered things that I wrote about? That's a great honor.

We all know what we need to do, we just need reminded sometimes. That little boy at the driving range must be about 20 years old now. We can never fully appreciate how much impact we have on others' lives. So why not make it a good impact?

Once you've had your testing, and can assure yourself that you're ok, you need to get out of the body-thinking mode, such as, "how's my hand doing today?" My leg, my foot, my arm, etc. Stop all that.

Then begin again. What was happening to you at the time your hand went from zero to weakness (with no in between)? What was going on in your life then? Something was changing for you at that point, perhaps affecting you more than you will admit to consciously. Who died? Who left you? Where was the separation coming from?

Begin the relaxation stuff, breathing, and music and laughing. Sex is always good for soothing, especially if you can find another person.

Then, begin to ask yourself, "why do I need this symptom?" Try to figure out what your body is hiding, and also trying to tell you.

If you're going to go on the assumption that you have TMS, then there's work to do. It's not easy, but it's well worth it. Your deeper self is trying to express something.

Happiness first <~~~~~ comprende?

Steve

 

[balto]

the neuro did order a MRI for the brain, as I had/have some wierd weakness in my foot as well. He wanted to rule out MS. The MRI came back clean. That foot thing hasn't quite gone away (improving), but my worry/fear about the foot thing has.

The key to your cure is right there Jtperks. When you have a clean MRI for your foot, your worry/fear about the foot subsided, your foot problem improved.
If you can some how stop your worry/fear about the wrist, the wrist problem will go away. Trauma, negative emotions, stress trigger the symptoms, your worry, your fear is what keep the symptoms alive. Take away your worry/fear you will make the body stop producing all these stress hormones. You will stop the body from tensing muscle cell. It relax and let the blood flow freely to all part of your body. Boom, your tms symptoms will disappear.
No Fear, no pain.
It easier said than done. It is difficult to just stop the fear and the worry habit. But to be cure you have to.
Analyze the situation and talk to your brain. Give it reason for not fearing the symptoms. Ask yourself why million of people used manual typewriter back in the 60 and 70's don't get rsi? why billion of manual labor all over the world working with their hands days in days out their whole life and they don't get rsi? why you? It just doesn't make sense right? Also, so what if you have rsi. No one ever die from it. No one ever get permanent nerve damage from it. NO one. What is there to fear about then?

 

[jtperks]

Steve,
I think I know what set this whole thing off 3 months ago, and I journaled about it a few times -- but I think my mistake there was that I expected all my symptoms to disappear after I got done with the journal entry. So I went from a singular "journaling" strategy, to a "just try and ignore the symptoms" strategy. But really I should be doing both of those at the same time, and get way better at the ignoring the symptoms part. And my biggest issue is that I was getting frustrated that I wasn't healing in the 2-8 weeks like alot of people, and like Sarno talked about. But in your book, you talk about the need to throw away the timetables, so I'm trying the best to do that as well. Alright, I'm recalibrated and ready to try thing thing again. Thanks again.

 

[jtperks]

Balto,
Thank you for those reassuring words. Your last sentences are what has been driving my fear -- the thought THAT I DO have permanent nerve damage. Well, I'm going to ignore it. I know my body is amped up right now --3 months of worry/fear has my body twitching and tremoring, which I take as a sign that I'm overloaded right now and I need to back it down a few hundred notches. Thanks again.

 

[jtperks]

Well, here we are 4 months later, the twitching, the weak hands/feet are still here. But now I've got myself a great doctor, which I didn't have before. This lady isn't a TMS doctor, but you can really tell she cares about her patients, and listens. So we basically started over, and she ran a boatload of blood tests (all came back negative), and she said ordering an EMG for my twitching legs and my weak hands was in order. She called it a no-brainer and couldn't believe my other GP and the neurologist wouldn't ask for the test. Well, I got the EMG today and the neurologist who did it has 38 years experience doing it, and he said if he had to write a textbook on how model nerves should look on an EMG, mine would be it. So he was really puzzled by my symptoms.

So I think I got what I needed today, confirmation that I don't have some horrible disease, and when I told him later that after my weakness started I was worried about ALS after googling "weakness", he said the ensuing symptoms make sense now. Talked about the human condition, and how it's far from perfect, it has a filtering system for pain and the like, but it gets confused sometimes. And dwelling on "what ifs" feed into that. So I think he was telling me I have TMS without telling me.

Anyway, I realize now that my progress was being held up because I couldn't believe that I had TMS 100%. But now, there really isn't any more tests to do. The latest symptom imperative that I've got, is a little trouble speaking. I feel like my tongue is swollen sometimes, and sometimes certain words are hard to say in a sentence. But, I've seen 2 neurologists for that, and 2 GPs, and they aren't worried -- so I'm going to chalk that up to symptom imperative....he said if I had a problem with my tongue, I'd know -- I'd sound like a drunk person with all my words, 100% of the time.

Anyway, the journey continues.....

 

[Steve Ozanich]

jt, I'm happy you had the tests. The most important thing I see in this post is, "...she cares about her patients, and listens." That's what TMS is all about. The TMS docs know that people will make appointments with them because they are there to listen, where the person has no one else. Healing is about connection, so that the need for rage no longer exists. If there is no fear there is no rage.

I've seen people who had trouble speaking, and others with trouble understanding. Confusion is the road driven by lack of direction. The more choices you allow yourself to have the less of a direction you will be able to choose. Believe in yourself.

 

[Andy Bayliss]

So I think I got what I needed today, confirmation that I don't have some horrible disease, and when I told him later that after my weakness started I was worried about ALS after googling "weakness", he said the ensuing symptoms make sense now. Talked about the human condition, and how it's far from perfect, it has a filtering system for pain and the like, but it gets confused sometimes. And dwelling on "what ifs" feed into that. So I think he was telling me I have TMS without telling me.

Hi jtperks,
I am happy for this new revelation in your life. The whole relief, and especially this quote. In my journey to accept TMS, I had to string together evidence. To me, this "confirmation" by a very experienced nerve doctor is something you may come back to again and again as doubts arise. There is a lot of power in the paragraph. Good Luck.
Andy B.