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How I Cured my RSI Pain (2010)

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Re: How I Cured my RSI Pain (2010)

#41

Post by Apes »

rafski wrote: post #39
Apes wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello Sillysaurus, You're making a dangerous connection here. Alternative medicine such as TMS helping reduce pain through the placebo effect does not suggest that the alternative medicine is effective. It just proves that the placebo effect is real. Alternative medicine may help in instances where the placebo effect is all that is needed. Unfortunately, there is risk that people may use alternative medicine as a rep…

I'm trying to picture what harm can be caused by telling one's pain to go, other than delaying traditional treatment.

A delay in pursuing an effective treatment can be extremely significant. For example, if one simply tries to will away a broken bone, it can set incorrectly and cause permanent damage.

Re: How I Cured my RSI Pain (2010)

#42

Post by sillysaurus »

Apes wrote: post #34
sillysaurus wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the scientific method is the heart of science, and the method is to check a hypothesis. When the goal is to fix yourself, the only relevant sample size is yourself. And when the problem may be psychological, then placebo effect may fix it, because you believe you've fixed it.

Hello Sillysaurus, You're making a dangerous connection here. Alternative medicine such as TMS helping reduce pain through the placebo effect does not suggest that the alternative medicine is effective. It just proves that the placebo effect is real. Alternative medicine may help in instances where the placebo effect is all that is needed. Unfortunately, there is risk that people may use alternative medicine as a rep…

Unfortunately, there is risk that people may use alternative medicine as a replacement for real medicine and cause themselves unnecessary harm.

Of course. That's how Steve Jobs died.

The scientific method requires someone to check their hypothesis. If they ignore data, then they're not doing science.

Re: How I Cured my RSI Pain (2010)

#43

Post by Retric »

rafski wrote: post #39
Apes wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello Sillysaurus, You're making a dangerous connection here. Alternative medicine such as TMS helping reduce pain through the placebo effect does not suggest that the alternative medicine is effective. It just proves that the placebo effect is real. Alternative medicine may help in instances where the placebo effect is all that is needed. Unfortunately, there is risk that people may use alternative medicine as a rep…

I'm trying to picture what harm can be caused by telling one's pain to go, other than delaying traditional treatment.

It's not hard to learn how to deal with the minor pain of a cavity long enough for it to become a major even potentially life threatening issue. Dittio for thigs like a minor acke that's the sign of an early cancer ect. Overall pain is generally a really important issue and solid pain for over a week without obvious cause is a major warning sign that should not be ignored.

PS: Only after a reigorious investigation should someone look into developing coping skills.

Re: How I Cured my RSI Pain (2010)

#44

Post by [deleted] »

xenophanes wrote: post #10

Never read the book, but psychology changes helped my RSI issues tremendously. > if you are unconsciously worried about something (including worried about your wrists hurting while you type), then this can cause your wrists to hurt while you type. This. If you're scared of RSI and scared of typing, that can itself cause problems.

[deleted]

Re: How I Cured my RSI Pain (2010)

#45

Post by cupcake-unicorn »

Maybe I'm missing something here, but from his very brief description of the methods used, I thought that there was at least some "method" or "logic" to it.

But then I brought up:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tension_myositis_syndrome

Which seems to indicate that the "treatment" is something much more vague like...journaling, support groups, therapy...?

Pardon the stereotype, but I'm imagining some old women's knitting group or something...or all the stuff about "repressed anger" "childhood abuse", etc....if that were the case, wouldn't women's circles, group therapy, individual therapy, anger management classes, spontaneously start curing people of their pain? I don't see anything specific about this method.

Maybe I'm missing something very basic? Distraction and getting your mind off of it is a well known way to deal with pain. I didn't think that was new.

Re: How I Cured my RSI Pain (2010)

#46

Post by xenophanes »

[deleted] wrote: post #44
xenophanes wrote: post #10

Never read the book, but psychology changes helped my RSI issues tremendously. > if you are unconsciously worried about something (including worried about your wrists hurting while you type), then this can cause your wrists to hurt while you type. This. If you're scared of RSI and scared of typing, that can itself cause problems.

[deleted]

In short, I relaxed and stopped being scared of it.

FWIW I also took more breaks, got a better chair and posture, stretched regularly, and especially importantly: became a lot more aware of signs of incoming pain and would take breaks before it started hurting not after. (But lately I'm fine and rarely need any breaks. After some success I stopped being scared.)

I think it's completely reasonable that your thoughts have a lot of effect on your body. I don't see anything unscientific about that. Both consciously and unconsciously your brain can move your legs, for example. And a lot of other important stuff.

As a comparison, consider running or some other sport. There's often minor aches and pains involved even if you never get anything people would call an "injury". If you had a bad attitude to them and interpreted them as a dangerous injury, I think they could bother you a huge amount. But if you aren't scared of them at all because you have a good understanding of which ones are danger signs and which are nothing to worry about, then the same pains can be no problem.

I think novices often make mistakes in both directions. Being overly worried about minor pains is common -- many people quickly give up on running. And trying to ignore major pains is also common and gets people injured. I think both types of mistakes happen (a lot) with RSI and typing too.

If you get get your psychology so you don't mind non-dangerous minor pains, but do things about any real problems, then that's good. If you stray to either direction of getting this correct you can cause problems.

Sometimes both issues happen. First you get some real pain. You take some breaks and it soon heals and you're OK but now you're scared and start interpreting non-dangerous minor sensations as scary pain. And if you keep going down that path it can escalate. And also if you try to push through while scared of every minor sensation, and type anyway, you're in no condition to understand whether there's anything dangerous going on that needs a break, some stretching, or more. So it's psychologically unpleasant plus you might hurt yourself again.

I think it's really valuable to build up more awareness and understanding of your hands/wrists, and have the right way of thinking about the topic.

EDIT: i think he deleted while i was writing my post. but basically he just asked for information about the things i talk about.

Re: How I Cured my RSI Pain (2010)

#47

Post by thwest »

Apes wrote: post #40
rafski wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying "placebo effect" like it's a bad thing. Many doctors agree placebo is a powerful drug, and a component of every type of pill administered to a conscious person. Even a consultation with a doctor can have a positive, even if unmeasurable placebo effect on a patient's health. If this method is about effective application of placebo and it works, at least for some people, what harm can be in it?

The negativity that you are sensing is not against the placebo effect, but against treatments that claim legitimacy and use anecdotes that are easily explained by the placebo effect as evidence of their effectiveness. A placebo is by definition something that has no effect at all. Any improvement in the state of someone taking a placebo must be attributed instead to something other than the placebo. However, patients…

What is "actual value" and how does it relate to subjective use-value? If people value the placebo effect, why is that bad? And if they value the effect, what is wrong with valuing the source of it? (The distinction between placebo and placebo effect stinks of Cartesian duality). Do you see meditation or talk therapy as placebos? Are we obligated to deny people self improvement that isn't a result of ingesting a chemical?

Alcoholics Anonymous has the same effectiveness as cold turkey and a few other sobriety methods (about 10% success). Are you suggesting that alcoholics should never attempt the AA program? Some solutions work for individual cases and are worth being explored on a personal basis.

Re: How I Cured my RSI Pain (2010)

#48

Post by gruseom »

xenophanes wrote: post #46
[deleted] wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

In short, I relaxed and stopped being scared of it. FWIW I also took more breaks, got a better chair and posture, stretched regularly, and especially importantly: became a lot more aware of signs of incoming pain and would take breaks before it started hurting not after. (But lately I'm fine and rarely need any breaks. After some success I stopped being scared.) I think it's completely reasonable that your thoughts h…

Oops, sorry, I deleted my question before you posted your answer. (I deleted it because I thought it might be slightly inflammatory.) Thanks for taking the time to answer.

Re: How I Cured my RSI Pain (2010)

#49

Post by evmar »

I'm another person that was helped by this. I was also pretty skeptical entering it, and I hate that I am embarrassed to tell my RSI-suffering friends about it when I know that it has helped many people (including others of my RSI-suffering friends).

To those talking about how it's pseudoscience, all I have to say is that there are at least some people, including the author of the post, who have tried many other options and found that this approach helps. As far as I'm concerned, I'd be happy to sit in a crystal pyramid or any other sort of quackery if it genuinely improved the problem.

(And in reading the book, the author does have some reasoning as to why it works. I think it's at least indisputable that there are physical consequences to many mental ailments like stress, so it doesn't seem like such a reach to me to try treating the mental issue to improve the physical symptoms.)

Re: How I Cured my RSI Pain (2010)

#50

Post by Yver »

rafski wrote: post #37
Apes wrote: post #14

Please be careful with this article. It is not remotely skeptical, and seems to be highly biased in the favor of Dr. Sarno's book. Chiropractic medicine for anything other than lower back pain and Acupuncture are two forms of alternative medicine that are well known to work off the placebo effect, yet the article mentions their use despite alleging to be a skeptic. This is a major red flag. There is not a large amoun…

You're saying "placebo effect" like it's a bad thing. Many doctors agree placebo is a powerful drug, and a component of every type of pill administered to a conscious person. Even a consultation with a doctor can have a positive, even if unmeasurable placebo effect on a patient's health. If this method is about effective application of placebo and it works, at least for some people, what harm can be in it?

Placebos are great for things you can do nothing about. If you caught the common cold and a placebo makes you feel better then great. But if you have Repetitive Strain Injury (emphasis on repetitive and injury) and your cure is placebo then you're setting yourself up for something nasty.

I'll quote the article:

> I can type as much as I want, in whatever unergonomic position I want, on any keyboard, without any pain. The amazing thing about this recovery is that the changes I implemented were entirely psychological.

Sounds great, but I'd rather recommend to not buy the book and invest in a good chair with a comfortable desk instead. Also, breaks, stretching and yadda yadda.

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