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 Letter to someone with RSI

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Redsandro Posted - 11/03/2008 : 10:16:45
Hi,

Since I recovered from RSI a million years ago, In my enthousiasm I happily wrote an 8 page article about it, but it was in Dutch.

Soon I learned, as did many of you, never to try to convince people when they are not asking for it. So I let this wonderful thing go.

But recently, when my good (international) friend asked about it, I inadvertedly wrote quite the synopsis to the article, in English, as a responce.

So, hoping it will help someone, I will post a toned down copy here.

quote:
About the RSI; If you don't like what I'm saying, please just forget it and don't be mad at me. Because in the past when I got cured I was so enthusiastic that I lost some friends trying to convince them. People don't want to know and become mad for thinking you're not taking them serious. But au contraire. And the key to even be able to start getting cured is knowledge. So I will have to type some stuff down now and I'll try to keep it short. Not that you should care about short. Because there is only one cure, it works, and it takes a lot of time. Now go read it twice. :P

First the obvious out of the way. I assume you're not born with a condition that makes you inflammatory-prone or messes up your arms more than a usual person. And I don't know how the severity of the pain is, because only when life becomes near-impossible are you internally convinced authentic cures and causes are baloney.

I've had RSI for 6 years, failing school, becoming so inflammated I had to move back to my parents and I saw my future collapse. I tell you drama is necessary unless you're gonna be convinced without it. I couldn't hold a cup or tie my shoe, and that's when I bought 10 books from the Internet to figure this out myself. I will skip all the baloney I read.

I assume you've had physiotherapist sessions? If it's bad you probably have. The person who massages your muscles and gives electric/ultrasonic stimulation or what. You usually feel better afterwards. It fights the symptoms but not the cause. The pain comes from oxygen deprivation in the smallest blood vessels (capillaries). When they are stimulated, blood flow increases, oxygen increases, and it temporarily feels better.

Long time oxygen deprivation causes irritations, in the long term tendon inflammations and in the even longer term nerve inflammations. Both pain and inflammations are real, but the entire world is convinced they are caused by repetitive stress such as computering, tennis, working as a painter, hairdresser, playing instruments etc.

The problem, as proven by the fact that NOTHING (read: NOTHING) takes away the CAUSE, is something completely different. It's psychosomatic. Our brain is not perfectly grown to be human, it's evolved from primal animals and it's a wonder that it even works the way it does. Internal lobes (that are in the subconscious) are more like our primal animal selfs and they are overruled by more modern parts of the brain. Our primal brain hates listening, acting social, thinking about others, being responsible. It just wants food, sex and sleep, or it will become enraged. But it's 'opinion' will not reach our consciousness. Our human part is almost the opposite. We suppress hatred. We listen, are social, want to be nice to others, maybe want to outperform others or are people pleasers, are overly helpful or anything like these. Imagine the internal conflicts that you don't know about.

For some people where the difference is huge, the primal rage becomes so much that our overruling modern brain has a hard time keeping it away from our consciousness. But it tries very very hard to do so anyway, by making you NOT think about any situations you've had in the past that also conflicted more than average. Think about drama. Extreme boyfriend girlfriend issues towards the point of hatred or extreme sadness. Think of you childhood. Did your parents mess up? Did your friends mess up? Any divorce or neglect? Any sexual abuse in your life?

Here's how it works. Your brain is in a state of timelessness. All previous primal self rage inflicting situations are still there, carefully tucked away far from your consciousness. Your 'self-thinking' subconscious brain is not as smart as it sounds. It's just a neurological network of nerves in the brain that by itself is stupid but made it through evolution anyway. Let's call this 'the network' for now. It identifies all past and current experiences that inflict (often unconscious) rage. See of this as a neurological signal. The network gets this signal and wants to get rid of it. Remember this. First a small paragraph to tell you about capillary control.

Your brain has direct control over your capillaries. Seriously. The problem causing oxygen deprivation could be solved in a SECOND, if your brain wanted to. Ever got so embarrassed that your face turned red? It's your brain opening the capillaries in your face. That's the time it takes. Your problems generate an effect known as RSI. Usually some form of pain starts that is (falsely) 'known' to be 'real' (as in physically caused, such as RSI), and/or triggered by a real physical injury that should be (and actually is) healed a long time ago (such as whiplash), to keep your modern brain convinced your lifestyle causes the pain in stead of your emotional history. For similar problems, other people get extreme back pain, chronic whiplash or other vague pain symptoms almost all caused by capillary contraction and thus oxygen deprivation (but the possibilities go beyond oxygen deprivation. It's just the most common).

Back to the network. For some reason, at some point in your live, your arm capillaries contracted a bit, causing oxygen deprivation and a mild annoying sensation. Your thoughts were with this annoyance. Even if it was just a little bit, this smallll distraction is a HUGE reward for the network that (thinks it) succeeded in keeping the rage out of your consciousness. It quickly learns if it increases a certain signal (that causes the capillary contraction and your complaints get worse), the rage-signal it doesn't want gets somewhat less. So the capillary-signal increases and increases and you have absolutely no idea about this brain action because you are convinced it is physical and work related. Everyone around you helps you believe this. Warning messages on keyboards, doctors giving you pills, assigning you to the physiotherapist, school cutting you a (financial) deal because problems are acknowledged, furniture special designed to stop RSI, articles in magazines... it's all baloney contributing in this mass hysteria.

As you might know, the networks in our brain grow from 'reward' (or just being used), stronger and stronger. No reward (no effectiveness) and they die. When a network has been rewarded for over two or three years, it's so strong that it's tagged near impossible to get rid off. Doctors tell us after 3 years of RSI, you'll never get rid of it. They don't know why, it's statistics. But do you see the connection?

You can get rid of the network. You're gonna have to drain yourself and your unconscious in total understanding and belief how this works. Not only is the pain real and the assumed physical cause totally fake, you'll also have to deliberately (re-)experience all your previous anger. Again and again. And every new situation also.

Here's what you do. You read Nate's story here:
http://www.conquerrsi.com/
He will second what I'm saying in his words. It will make you understand a bit more. Then you go read Rachel's story:
http://podolsky.everybody.org/rsi/
Some people explain this a bit differently but in essence it's the same.
Then you go buy "The Mindbody Prescription" by John Sarno. He discovered this way the mind works totally by accident. There's some blahblah in there but you'll need to read it and whipe the dirt off the potatoes for yourself.
Then go buy "The Divided Mind", from John Sarno and a bunch of his colleagues. It will sprinkle his previous book with more psychological findings and facts.

Then, when you're swimming in the knowledge, you have to get out everything that enraged you in your life. When you wash something you need to stir it, right? So buy yourself an empty book. That's right, you're gonna keep a journal/diary again just like when you were 12 (maybe). You are going to write in this journal, DAYLY. Write about all past situations. Not as if it's going to be published, but 100% subjectively in YOUR opinion for YOURself, being mean to everyone and everything who did wrong for even a small amount. If you don't start crying a bunch of times, you're doing it wrong. Keep doing this for a while even after your pain starts subsiding because a 6 year developed network will be back VERY quickly if you stop attacking it after a month.

In the meantime, (when the inflammation is gone but the pain is there), stop taking medications and start doing the stuff that you avoid doing! This makes the network ineffective and slowly grow smaller. Remember that oxygen deprived muscles don't like doing stuff because it's painful, but they won't ever get damaged! There is no permanent damage in RSI. So just do it and wait for that 'blush' moment so you can laugh about how sudden a pain relief can occur after you've reconditioned the network.

Don't forget, the brain can seem so complicated, smart and irrational. But it is not smart. Pain and rage are not directly connected. A 'pain response' might take time to occur so it looks like it is unrelated. But it is. If everyone realized this, billions of euro's would be saved because a lot of people are taking unnecessary operations for arms, necks, backs and they don't even help.

It took me 2 months after I began my stuff before I had an impressive pain-decrease. I couldn't even type. From one day to the next, I typed like crazy. That's also when I was really convinced. Then it took me about a year of setbacks before I was totally cured.

I also talked to this guy who was cured in one day just from reading a similar report, but that is very rare. Bad thing is I also hear people who struggle for years and get no pain relief.

One thing that reallly helped me was the fact that, while trying many things the doctor suggested, it only got worse to the point of not being able to do anything. It proved to me that, although the world says otherwise, every known solution is baloney. So the fact that we're mailing each other makes me wonder if you are in enough pain to take me seriously and not laugh in my face from this day forward.

Take care,

~Sander
Source

____________
TMS is the hidden language of the soul.
3   L A T E S T    R E P L I E S    (Newest First)
Redsandro Posted - 11/10/2008 : 08:12:09
Thanks for the comments.

I know of no study that emphasizes your point, celloLWF, but I do know that a hundred studies in my country all keep the RSI legend alive, hence they are all wrong.

My point about inflammation in RSI being real is something I will keep promoting as a fact, although the exact cause should not be misunderstood. Your brain never 'intended' for inflammation to happen. Yet irritation in the tendons or nerves makes those areas inflammation prone. Just like freezing weather does not create the common cold in you, it merely helps the common cold to develop. Yet it does this so powerfully that in my opinion, it is good that parents teach their children to pack warm for cold weather to prevent getting the common cold, even though the real reason is food and sleep (resistance), friends (with the virus), and what more.

You are right about the length and attention span though. But comparing it to my lengthy previous report, I'm quite happy.

And besides, a RSI sufferer who lost interest before reaching the end of this article is not in enough pain to be interested enough.

____________
TMS is the hidden language of the soul.
mcone Posted - 11/08/2008 : 00:33:27
quote:
Originally posted by celloLWF
Actually, new studies show that there is no inflammatory process in RSI.


Which new studies show this? (I'm quite skeptical of ALL studies that purport to prove anything at this point, but still curious). And what I'm placing most of my faith in, these days...are the evidently credible reports of people who actually get better. I say "screw" the so-called "official" experts and people who write the books (even Sarno himself - as much as he's contributed...neither the application of his written book prescription nor access to personal treatment seem especially attractive to me right now - although arguably they could be).

In any event, people who get well and elaborate on how they made the "program" work for them ARE the real experts, in my view, like Redsandro. They are the true masters and I'm inspired by contributions made by people like him.
celloLWF Posted - 11/06/2008 : 11:08:40
I know, it's hard to convince someone. I applaud and admire your attempt to help people.

Your explanation of the psychology is detailed and good.

You may want to just shorten your explanation alittle. It is very long and you lose the readers attention. Also, some of your facts are wrong. The most important one:

"Inflammation in RSI is real"

Actually, new studies show that there is no inflammatory process in RSI. So even this basic "fact" is wrong, misleading and frightening.


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