4 ms·

I have a couple of contrary suggestions with respect to health. 1. Don't follow the conventional wisdom on RSI I struggled with RSI for years, and did all

by mhartl 15y ago

I have a couple of contrary suggestions with respect to health. 1. Don't follow the conventional wisdom on RSI I struggled with RSI for years, and did all the usual things (warmups, exercises, braces, a Kinesis with modified key layout, etc.) Then, in early 2010, I read (at Aaron Iba's suggestion) The Mindbody Prescription by John Sarno. Within a couple of days, I saw remarkable improvement; within a month, I was symptom-free. YMMV, of course. 2. Don't wear a brace of any kind. I question the advice to wear a back brace. Over time, this leads to muscle atrophy and causes or exacerbates the very problem you're trying to solve. I don't warm up, don't wear braces, and have switched back to a Qwerty layout. I stay strong and healthy other ways, but I now ignore all RSI-related advice that doesn't acknowledge the "mindbody" nature of the problem. I've been symptom-free for more than a year. (This is an anecdote, so take it for what it's worth. The book's like $12, though, so you don't have much to lose.)

AlexandrB 15y ago
> The Mindbody Prescription by John Sarno The central claim of this book (from reading Amazon reviews) seems to be that chronic pain may be caused by mental/emotional distress. To me, this seems like a remarkable claim, and I'm super-skeptical without some kind of evidence. Out of curiosity, does the author offer any such evidence in the book? Are there other books on the topic?
- MichaelGG 15y ago
  Exactly. I was so desperate, I would have tried anything. But, I could not finish The Mindbody Prescription. General non-scientific fluff, and a lot of complaining about Freud not being taken seriously these days. No real evidence, although I only got through a few chapters. However, despite me thinking the book was rubbish and tossing it shortly, my RSI problems disappeared. I guess the suggestion that pain wasn't actually physical in source was enough for the pain to stop. I've gone from being dominated by RSI problems to not giving it much thought at all. The placebo effect is real, sometimes even when the patient is aware that it's a placebo. Note: I don't think the book is correct. There are plenty of phenomenon that we don't understand, and not having a real explanation is not reason to just make one up and assert its correctness without evidence.
  - gtani 15y ago
    It's good that your wrists are recovered. I think folks need to look at other environmental factors: how you close wrist joint when you're driving, riding a bike, playing guitar, holding a baby, using power tools etc
  - nileshk 15y ago
    > The placebo effect is real, sometimes even when the patient is aware that it's a placebo. I actually think Sarno explains quite well why the placebo effect works in many cases. It works because the pain is caused by psychological issues to begin with, so when you receive a placebo, your mind knows to make it go away and shift to a different problem. He actually calls it a "nocebo" because it doesn't actually make it go away. For example, you may have back pain, do some kind of therapy to address it (whether it is chiropractic adjustments, massage, medication, cortisone injections, or even surgery); it goes away, but then a week later you start having wrist pain, and the cycle continues (maybe with the back pain coming back) until you address the underlying repressed emotions.
- Derbasti 15y ago
  Back pain used to be difficult to medicate. Then they found out that many cases of back pain showed operable anomalies in their lower spine. Surgery usually lifted the back pain. They thought they found the reason and cure for back pain. Then however, they found that actually, those anomalies were just as likely in people experiencing back pain as in people with no symptoms at all. Now they were back to square one and did not know where back pain actually came from. Funny enough, back pain can most reliably be lifted by seeing a doctor. It does not matter whether the dictor prescribes some medication, arranges for surgery or does nothing at all. In many cases (not just back pain) simply seeing a doctor increases your chances of getting better way more than any particular therapy. Humans are weird animals.
- mhartl 15y ago
  Aaron's post on The Mindbody Prescription covered some of these issues. http://aaroniba.net/articles/tmp/how-i-cured-my-rsi-pain.html http://aaroniba.net/articles/tmp/how-i-cured-my-rsi-pain.htm... I'm a skeptic myself, trained as a scientist with degrees in physics from Harvard and Caltech. The technique from the book seems like it couldn't possibly work, but it did. As noted before, YMMV.
- lena 15y ago
  Sarno's book is part great and part fluff, but the idea that stress/ideas play a big part in chronic pain is not controversial among pain scientists. Explain Pain by Butler and Moseley is a great book about this, but unfortunately it is rather expensive. The latter part of this blog post gives a summary: http://changeyourpain.com/2011/03/03/what-was-that-about-chronic-pain/ http://changeyourpain.com/2011/03/03/what-was-that-about-chr... This is a TED video by Moseley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwd-wLdIHjs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwd-wLdIHjs And this is a good summarizing post about pain science: http://www.bettermovement.org/2010/seven-things-you-should-know-about-pain-science/ http://www.bettermovement.org/2010/seven-things-you-should-k...
- mikeklaas 15y ago
  Sarno's book is a… difficult read for a person inclined to think rationally. I recommend reading the entire contents of conquerrsi.com (gone, but still accessible on archive.org), thinking about that while your read sarno.
nileshk 15y ago
I also conquered "RSI" by reading Dr John Sarno's book (after trying everything else I could for over a year and a half). This was back in 2002 and I haven't problems since (11 years); and the problem went away in a matter of weeks. Now I type on a keyboard all day long, play guitar, bass guitar, drums, and sometimes keyboards without worrying about taking breaks or ergonomics. I do have an ergonomic computer setup (keyboard tray), but it's mainly just for comfort and speed. I do think what Sarno writes is what is really going on in most cases of "RSI" and other types of chronic pain. It makes complete logical sense to me and makes sense of everything I experienced, even going back before I had the wrist pain (occasional unexplained back pain, neck pain, etc that would last for weeks - which I no longer have now).

by mhartl 15y ago

AlexandrB 15y ago

> The Mindbody Prescription by John Sarno The central claim of this book (from reading Amazon reviews) seems to be that chronic pain may be caused by mental/emotional distress. To me, this seems like a remarkable claim, and I'm super-skeptical without some kind of evidence. Out of curiosity, does the author offer any such evidence in the book? Are there other books on the topic?

MichaelGG 15y ago
Exactly. I was so desperate, I would have tried anything. But, I could not finish The Mindbody Prescription. General non-scientific fluff, and a lot of complaining about Freud not being taken seriously these days. No real evidence, although I only got through a few chapters. However, despite me thinking the book was rubbish and tossing it shortly, my RSI problems disappeared. I guess the suggestion that pain wasn't actually physical in source was enough for the pain to stop. I've gone from being dominated by RSI problems to not giving it much thought at all. The placebo effect is real, sometimes even when the patient is aware that it's a placebo. Note: I don't think the book is correct. There are plenty of phenomenon that we don't understand, and not having a real explanation is not reason to just make one up and assert its correctness without evidence.
- gtani 15y ago
  It's good that your wrists are recovered. I think folks need to look at other environmental factors: how you close wrist joint when you're driving, riding a bike, playing guitar, holding a baby, using power tools etc
- nileshk 15y ago
  > The placebo effect is real, sometimes even when the patient is aware that it's a placebo. I actually think Sarno explains quite well why the placebo effect works in many cases. It works because the pain is caused by psychological issues to begin with, so when you receive a placebo, your mind knows to make it go away and shift to a different problem. He actually calls it a "nocebo" because it doesn't actually make it go away. For example, you may have back pain, do some kind of therapy to address it (whether it is chiropractic adjustments, massage, medication, cortisone injections, or even surgery); it goes away, but then a week later you start having wrist pain, and the cycle continues (maybe with the back pain coming back) until you address the underlying repressed emotions.
Derbasti 15y ago
Back pain used to be difficult to medicate. Then they found out that many cases of back pain showed operable anomalies in their lower spine. Surgery usually lifted the back pain. They thought they found the reason and cure for back pain. Then however, they found that actually, those anomalies were just as likely in people experiencing back pain as in people with no symptoms at all. Now they were back to square one and did not know where back pain actually came from. Funny enough, back pain can most reliably be lifted by seeing a doctor. It does not matter whether the dictor prescribes some medication, arranges for surgery or does nothing at all. In many cases (not just back pain) simply seeing a doctor increases your chances of getting better way more than any particular therapy. Humans are weird animals.
mhartl 15y ago
Aaron's post on The Mindbody Prescription covered some of these issues. http://aaroniba.net/articles/tmp/how-i-cured-my-rsi-pain.html http://aaroniba.net/articles/tmp/how-i-cured-my-rsi-pain.htm... I'm a skeptic myself, trained as a scientist with degrees in physics from Harvard and Caltech. The technique from the book seems like it couldn't possibly work, but it did. As noted before, YMMV.
lena 15y ago
Sarno's book is part great and part fluff, but the idea that stress/ideas play a big part in chronic pain is not controversial among pain scientists. Explain Pain by Butler and Moseley is a great book about this, but unfortunately it is rather expensive. The latter part of this blog post gives a summary: http://changeyourpain.com/2011/03/03/what-was-that-about-chronic-pain/ http://changeyourpain.com/2011/03/03/what-was-that-about-chr... This is a TED video by Moseley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwd-wLdIHjs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwd-wLdIHjs And this is a good summarizing post about pain science: http://www.bettermovement.org/2010/seven-things-you-should-know-about-pain-science/ http://www.bettermovement.org/2010/seven-things-you-should-k...
mikeklaas 15y ago
Sarno's book is a… difficult read for a person inclined to think rationally. I recommend reading the entire contents of conquerrsi.com (gone, but still accessible on archive.org), thinking about that while your read sarno.

nileshk 15y ago

I also conquered "RSI" by reading Dr John Sarno's book (after trying everything else I could for over a year and a half). This was back in 2002 and I haven't problems since (11 years); and the problem went away in a matter of weeks. Now I type on a keyboard all day long, play guitar, bass guitar, drums, and sometimes keyboards without worrying about taking breaks or ergonomics. I do have an ergonomic computer setup (keyboard tray), but it's mainly just for comfort and speed. I do think what Sarno writes is what is really going on in most cases of "RSI" and other types of chronic pain. It makes complete logical sense to me and makes sense of everything I experienced, even going back before I had the wrist pain (occasional unexplained back pain, neck pain, etc that would last for weeks - which I no longer have now).