Curing RSI

 

What doctors do not know but should.

The good news: Really bad RSI is very difficult to manage, but it is ‘curable’

Information here provided by Sanjeev Sabhlok ─ a long standing patient of RSI.

The intent behind this work is to advance the truth on this subject. Use this advice only if it makes sense to you.

Notes from my RSI case and its treatment

Want to keep in touch? Join the Facebook group where I will update people on the progress of my book on RSI.

 

There is no magic cure for RSI – just a lot of hard work. RSI requires you to make ALL your muscles supple again – not just your arm muscles!

 

Don’t go for: surgery, anti-inflammatories, ultrasound, cortisone injections, TENS machines, Chinese herbs, or various gels and pills.

 

THE CURE

 

1. Test for tightness in these muscles (People with supple and flexible muscles will NEVER get RSI)

 

2. Break the spasms/ tightness in muscles with myotherapy or other very hard, SCIENTIFIC massage (40% of the cure)

 

3. Recover normal range of motion and length of muscle through SCIENTIFIC clinical Pilates and other stretches – follow up with yoga. (40% of the cure)

 

4. Simultaneously use light dumb bells (5% of the cure)

   

5. Pace yourself. Pause before doing anything – relax the body as much as possible (Alexander technique, psychiatry. 5%)

 

6. Use Dragon Naturally Speaking Ver. 9.0 or better to minimise typing. (5%).

 

7. Good SCIENTIFIC ergonomics will help – eg. Type while sitting on a fitball, get a split keyboard. (5%) (I have been sitting on a 65 cm ball at work since December 2006)

 

Finally, THE KEY THING IS TO NOT DESPAIR!

It will finally get OK!

 

MY CASE STUDY

I am building detailed notes of my RSI case and its treatment that should help the medical fraternity if it is willing to open its eyes and learn about the true causes of RSI and its true remedies.

 

I spend very little time on this website (most of my focus is on my books – see, for example: my latest manuscript: Breaking Free of Nehru.

 

After completing the 3 books that I have already conceptualised, I plan to write a book on RSI. By 2012, perhaps.

 RSI[1] and other MSDs[2] are reversible

 

My experience-based SCIENTIFIC knowledge

By now my RSI experience is over 10 years old. On 26 September 2004, after undergoing nearly 5 years of severe and shooting pain that simply can’t be described, across my entire hands, arms, neck, chest, lats, abdominal wall, and later the lower back as well and severe numbness and in my hands and arms that made it virtually impossible to sleep, I figured out THE cure – a package that worked. Curing RSI requires knowledge that almost no one in the world possesses – only patients who have experienced it for many years, and tried out every possible solution to see what works – and why. This website will tell about a fully tested cure for your RSI.

 

Objective of this website

This website shares the knowledge I have gained through my extremely painful learning experience. (Note: I have not had time to improve the contents of this site since 2004 given acute shortage of time, but I retain the hope of improving it over time.)

 

The continuing good news!  

I have gotten significantly better since 2002 – SLOWLY, BUT SURELY - through over 150 sessions of myotherapy (from two sessions a week initially to about once in three months now), plus hundreds of yoga and pilates classes, plus 2 hours of swimming a week since August 2007 – particularly the back stroke). Unfortunately, I tend to exacerbate my problems each time I get better - by typing even more! RSI definitely has a cure but it comes back if you don’t take care of it.

 

Sanjeev Sabhlok (see my latest book), March 2009.

 

Recommended

a) Myotherapy

My genius myotherapist’s name is Peter Prskalo – I remain indebted to him for life. Read about trigger points  and understand what happens to your muscles when they get tired from overwork.

 

b) Yoga and Pilates

While the specialties of Pilates and Yoga do not know anything about this problem, their methods are extremely useful in conjunction with myotherapy. (My Clinical Pilates instructor: Ingrid Lamb, Yoga instructors: Chitra Stern of Integral Yoga, Adrianne Cook; yoga-pilates Maggie Flanagan).

 

c) Swimming

Do the backstroke – strengthens the shoulders.

 

Your typing posture is important as well – but not as important as stretching your muscles and keeping them strong and supple.

 

Not Recommended

These ‘specialists’ know very little about RSI: Manipulation therapists, bowen therapists, feldenkrais therapists, ergonomists, shiatsu therapists.

 

These ‘specialists’ are TOTALLY IGNORANT !!! about RSI: General practitioners (MBBS, MDs etc.), hand surgeons, neuro-specialists, occupational physicians, chiropractors, acupuncturists, homeopaths, physiotherapists, kineseologists, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), Sarno’s TMS, etc.

26 September 2004. I had written:

 

After nearly 5 years of constant numbness in my fingers and later, in the arms, I have now had 3 sleeps without any numbness, without wearing splints. The sharp pains in the fingers, palms of the hands, shoulder, chest and stomach have almost completely disappeared, too. This is the latest of a series of long term ‘cures’ – a golf ball sized clump of pain in my forearms was ‘fixed’ 1 1/2 years ago, shoulders and chest ‘fixed’ 4 weeks ago, and now, the most difficult one of all, numbness of the entire arm.

 

Years of various other treatments such as Shiatsu may have helped set the stage for recovery, but the 50+ sessions of myotherapy in the last two years and 15 sessions of clinical Pilates in the past 3 months - both being anatomy based therapeutic sciences that evolved in the west after World War II, have finally produced a personal miracle for me, shifting my mental gears to near normalcy.

 

I still have a significant amount of residual pain, particularly in the hands, arms, waist and lower back area, but the pattern of cure/ recovery is now clear. RSI is fully curable if properly diagnosed and treated. It is essentially a problem of misaligned bio-mechanics leading to tightening of a vast number of muscles across the body. My personal challenge in the next two years is to extend this cure and fix the rest of my body, and prevent recurrence.

 

In order to benefit the rest of the world with this information since there are many thousands if not millions of such sufferers, and doctors are particularly ignorant about this problem, I have purchased www.rsicure.info and will use it to place information on my case, as well as other useful information for RSI sufferers and sufferers of other muskulo-skeletal disorders.

 

The sole goal of this web site is to assist the thousands if not millions of RSI sufferers across the world to rid themselves of physical and mental pain, and numbness of the upper limbs. I don’t plan to communicate with individuals. You can take this advice or leave it. There are no warranties nor any liability accepted. This is the scientific truth about MSDs and RSI the way I see it from years of bad and bitter experience.

 

Sanjeev

 

NOTE written on 29 September 2007: Unfortunately, this absence of numbness and the reduced pain was only temporary. It always recurs with repeated strain. However, as my RSI kept reducing over the years, I have kept increasing my typing on the computer!! Today, I type as much and as fast as I typed in 1998 when I first got RSI. But I don’t have completely absence of numbness, nor complete relief from pain. However, I know how to manage and to control it. That’s what counts. My happiness is almost euphoric, coming from the depressive state of 2000-2002. Couldn’t imagine that I’d write (and be able to revise so many times) a book; at that time I couldn’t even type a word without excruciating pain.

 

 

[1] Repeated Strain Injury

[2] Muskulo skeletal disorder