Tension myositis syndrome - What if your Tendonitis or RSI isn´t that?

[jpdelteso]

This information might be interesting for those of you who have been diagnosed with tendonitis, carpal tunnel, RSI, or any other lesion which is taking too long to heal for what it should, or for those who were diagnosed but with medical tests showing no evidence.

I´ll tell you the story from my personal experience. Some years ago, I was diagnosed with tendonitis, at that time I was into 3D rather than drawing, so in theory, that tendonitis came from bad positions using the mouse. Just telling the doctors (several doctors and fisiotherapists), they came to similar conclusions, which included tendonitis and carpal tunnel syndrome. So, I went through all kind of medical tests (electromiogram, magnetic resonance, ecography...) All of them showed no evidence of tendonitis or carpal tunnel, and doing more research by myself, I also considered having RSI. I went through Fisiotheraphy(including massage theraphy, ultrasounds and even laser)which seemed like working, but when I returned to the slightest activity I had relapses once and again. At that point I was tremendously frustrated cause I couldn´t get my hands on my computer or... anything, not to talk about the frustrated desire of starting to draw... but, fortunately, one day, don´t really remember how, I found out about something called "TMS", a theory that states that pain may be produced from one´s mind. It doesn´t state that the pain it´s not real, but that one is able to generate that pain by decreasing the blood/oxygen levels to that areas in wich pain arises. This is just a very, very brief version of what TMS is. If you´re in a case similar to mine, I´ll leave some information here, so you can judge on your own. If you were in such a case, it would be great, since there´s solution . The hardest part about this, might be that you should have to assume this as your real "illness".

Don´t know if this will be useful for you, but just in case you want to give it a chance, I´ll leave you this links here:
http://www.tmshelp.com/

and, the book that really helped me to get over it:
http://www.amazon.com/Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body-Pain/dp/0446675156 (just edited, thank you Kongni!)

I hope some of you will find this information useful.
Cheers.

Jose.

[Kongni]

Hey Jose,

The Amazon link is broken for some reason. For anyone who is interested, the book is called "The Mindbody Perscription"

I have TMS myself. It was really bad for about three years, got better over the course of another three and has now relapsed since moving to Boston. I know what the pain is this time around and I'm making a real effort to get over it.

The pain started at the end of a project cycle at a game company I was working at. Then, the studio closed we all got laid off and then it got REALLY bad.
Luckily I got another job soon after but the pain did not go away. I went to many physical therapy sessions, massage, chiropractic, rolfing, and went to the best back doctor in the region. Eventually a friend of mine recommended the book you mentioned. What a relief!

[jpdelteso]

Hi Kongni,

Thanks for telling about the broken link. It might be because of an update on their databases, I suppose. Just replaced it.

Glad to hear that you´re getting over it :) I also remember how reliefed I felt when I read about this, how suddenly it made sense. In my case, it had a lot to do with feeling incapable of becoming a "draftsman". As long as I had this "injury" I wouldn´t be able to seriously jump into it, so, as you know, it was easier to feel pain than confronting it.

Now I mostly got over it. From time on time I feel a slight pain in the area, but it´s just a matter of being conscious of what´s happening, give it a couple of shouts(literally, or just in my mind, you know:tihi:), and it goes away.