Day 1 Wrist and Hand Pain for the past year

Hi everyone, I've been having hand and wrist pain for a little over a year now and it's consumed my life. I believed it came from overworking my hands with video games and piano, and the doctor diagnosed me with Dequervain's Tendonitis. I had to stop all hobbies and activities that used my hands. That includes weight lifting, drawing, video games, piano, driving, etc. I'm also starting a software engineering job in Fall, so I would be screwed if I didn't get things fixed by then.

The past year has been so miserable and I've tried going to an Orthopedic specialist, acupuncture, Chiropractor, occupational therapy and none of them worked for me. I was at my wit's end when I was scouring through the RSI subreddit and found many comments mentioning Dr. Sarno's work on TMS. I was intrigued and considering I didn't have any other options, I read The Mindbody Prescription and was blown away. I began to see myself in the text. I am a bit of a goodist; I try to be so understanding of people's situations that I often repress my anger towards them and I have a lot of unresolved pressures building up inside of me. My symptoms have also been inconsistent. I had pain in both hands sometimes and other times it would be in only one hand or even a hand I had been resting all day and often the pain would move to my neck or shoulders. Sometimes there would be no pain even after a hard day's work! I am convinced that my ailment originates from the unconscious and there's nothing wrong with me physically at this point.

I had only read Dr. Sarno's book two days ago, so I have not had a lot of time to digest and internalize the knowledge. My unconscious still thinks that repressing my negative feelings and emotions through pain is an effective strategy, but I am constantly reminding myself that the pain is harmless so hopefully I can make more progress soon. I'm going to be rereading the Mindbody Prescription everyday, doing the Structured Educational Program , and journaling about my pressures and feelings for the day. My main concern right now is overcoming my fear of pain. I still find myself getting concerned whenever the pain flares up even if I tell myself that the pain is harmless and it's a psychological issue. I know it might take time and it's still very early for me since learning the material.

For anyone struggling with pain right now, we're in it together and I know that we'll all get better!

 

Hello and welcome! You have already made a great step by noticing these inconsistencies. That is concrete evidence that nothing is truly wrong structurally. Reminding myself of my symptom's inconsistencies always helped me when dealing with doubts or symptoms flare ups, etc.

I think this is very normal. The SEP is designed specifically to help you move past this fear. The structure and repetition of doing the exercises over the 40 days (even if it take you longer like I did) will help ingrain those positive thought processes into your conscious and subconscious. Good luck!