I find it interesting that he got great relief from acupuncture, which has been fairly well studied and found to have no benefit beyond a totally untrained person pretending to stick needles into you. Certainly points towards it being psychosomatic.
How I Cured my RSI Pain
31–40 of 78 posts
Re: How I Cured my RSI Pain
#32I have tendinitis in my wrists to the point that I need to wear braces whenever I use a computer. I'm pretty skeptical of his claims, though I too agree with what he notes as useless. The only thing that has worked for me has been strengthening my wrists. I do about 600 reps a day (variety of axes and loads) and it has stabilized my RSI. Oh - and I make sure that my keyboard is rather low.
Have you tried it? I'm interested to hear from people who tried following Dr. Sarno's advice but didn't have any success with it. It gives me a better idea for how much certainty I should claim when I advise others to try it. :-)
Re: How I Cured my RSI Pain
#33If you have RSI typing pain and haven't treated it, spend a whole day typing with wrist braces. It convinced me to switch CTRL and CAPS LOCK on my keyboard. I love keyboard shortcuts, and bending my wrist to hit CTRL was causing my left pinkie to go numb.
I also have 'evasive action' that works well. When I feel pain typing, I immediately stop and give the offending hand a workout with a stress ball for 5 minutes. Then I massage the tendons in my forearm and then stretch my wrist on all axes. I haven't had significant RSI pain in a few years, and at this point I'm not brave enough to test which part of the routine helps most :D
Re: How I Cured my RSI Pain
#34I have suffered from RSI repeatedly over the years. I use an ergonomic microsoft keyboard, and this really helps. However what made the biggest difference was when I started using a Logitech Mouseman Marble mouse. The pain in my right arm/wrist vanished. I will never use a normal mouse again.
Re: How I Cured my RSI Pain
#35[deleted]
Re: How I Cured my RSI Pain
#36Im still sceptical :) Less, though, than when I opened the article; I have independently noticed my RSI worsens when stressed. Im not sure I buy the mumbo jumbo about the solution as much as I buy the explanation of why stress could affect it. I use a powerball daily which has really helped. Saw the same issues with massage that the article writer had (short term fix) but it feels really great so I stuck with that=.…
I have no problem in believing that things like this can help with the pain (a lot). But still, author says that now he is able to type in any uncomfortable position for as long as he wants, and it sounds little scary. "See? I don't feel any pain, it's great." Well, wasn't there some reason for that pain in the first place? Maybe you feel great, but still, are you sure that you aren't permanently hurting your own body? RSI isn't just a state of mind…
Re: How I Cured my RSI Pain
#37Im still sceptical :) Less, though, than when I opened the article; I have independently noticed my RSI worsens when stressed. Im not sure I buy the mumbo jumbo about the solution as much as I buy the explanation of why stress could affect it. I use a powerball daily which has really helped. Saw the same issues with massage that the article writer had (short term fix) but it feels really great so I stuck with that=.…
I have no problem in believing that things like this can help with the pain (a lot). But still, author says that now he is able to type in any uncomfortable position for as long as he wants, and it sounds little scary. "See? I don't feel any pain, it's great." Well, wasn't there some reason for that pain in the first place? Maybe you feel great, but still, are you sure that you aren't permanently hurting your own bod…
Yeh, I dug around a bit more and, quite scarily, the advice appears to come down to "ignore the pain and it will go away"
Now I appreciate that if the cause is purely neurological then it is a beneficial thing to do. But if it is physical in some way; well that just feels problematic.
If you can tune out pain (and I know this is possible) then what damage are you potentially then doing....
Re: How I Cured my RSI Pain
#38Here's my list of things which helped me: Logitech Mouseman Marble, the flat Apple keyboards, regular Pilates, and a conscious effort to sit up straight while typing.
Re: How I Cured my RSI Pain
#39I too, encountered crippling RSI pain, and eventually switched to a kinesis keyboard ( http://www.kinesis-ergo.com ). While the keyboards are crazy expensive, and a bit flaky, they completely cured my carpal tunnel. The downside is, I'm now stuck hauling around this weird, non-standard keyboard. :)
I've actually never had any serious problems with my wrists, and sometimes I think that starting playing piano as a young kid, along with my guitar today, and with regular trips to the swimming pool and daily bike commute, helps keeping my wrists strong and pain free.
I've been using a kinesis freestyle keyboard for about a year, and before that a series of regular chepo 102 keys, but the possibility of having my hands apart a longer distance keeps my wrists more relaxed and overall I get a better body posture.
I think most of the problems other people have come from the latter: my elbows are on top of the table, which means my keyboard is farther away than what I see other people using and so I'm in a very relaxed position. The ubiquity of laptop's small keyboards certainly doesn't help either.
Re: How I Cured my RSI Pain
#40Typing in dvorak decreases finger movement significantly. I recommend it.
I also switched to Dvorak due to RSI issues on a QWERTY layout. It's not a substitute for taking typing breaks and improving the circulation in your hands but it helps a lot.
I recommend trying for a day or so. Even after a few hours of use it's obvious that you're doing less work to type the same things. In 3 weeks your typing speed should be tolerable (capable of conversing on IRC) and in 3 months you should be up to full speed.
I don't type any faster on Dvorak than I used to. It's just more comfortable for my hands.