Tackling That Tingling Here's Why Seeking Treatment For RSI Is a Good Idea
If you've ever felt a tingling sensation in your arms, wrists or hands, I'm not suggesting you get on a plane to India, but as a metaphor, it's not bad advice.
Take the journey of Jon Pither, for example. Mr. Pither is perhaps a bit too, well, British to believe in fate, but when his technology company sent him to Bangalore for training, he saw an opportunity. Mr. Pither had been wrestling for more than a year with pain from his hands up to his shoulders; first ignoring it, then consulting a swath of British doctors and specialists, which made no difference. He had heard good things about Deepak Sharan and his Bangalore clinic Recoup. As a programmer tethered to his computer, Mr. Pither was convinced his pains were a form of repetitive strain injury, or RSI, an affliction suffered by millions of office workers, musicians, teachers, journalists, assembly-line workers, nurses, surgeons, massage therapists, children and housewives. "This was almost my last chance," Mr. Pither recalls. "I and nearly every other RSI patient have been told they can be cured. You've heard it all before."
After a day of training, Mr. Pither turned down offers of drinks with colleagues and headed by rickshaw to Dr. Sharan's clinic. First impressions weren't good: a narrow four-story building, standing out in a run-down neighborhood. But the inside, while simple, conveyed a seriousness and focus he hadn't seen back in the United Kingdom: medical books everywhere; a photograph on the wall of Dr. Sharan being honored by an Indian prime minister for his work on cerebral palsy, and a "mini army of people running around to help you," as Mr. Pither puts it. Most important, there was Dr. Sharan himself. "He listened to my story," Mr. Pither wrote in a lengthy blog entry about his experience (
www.pitheringabout.com/?p=24).
Dr. Sharan has emerged as something of a cult figure in the world of RSI. Trained in pediatric orthopedics in the U.K. and the U.S., Dr. Sharan returned to India seven years ago and was horrified to find kids as young as 6 years old contracting RSI from computers and handheld gaming devices. Finding most available treatments ineffective, he and his staff tried the same manual techniques he'd been using on children with cerebral palsy, and, as he puts it, "discovered that the same techniques worked brilliantly with RSI." Dr. Sharan was sought by parents and relatives of his young patients, as well as technology companies weighed down by suffering employees.
That Mr. Pither and patients from 14 other countries also have beaten a path to Dr. Sharan's door is a reflection of how far some people feel they need to go to get decent treatment for RSI. And it's also a lesson for the rest of us in how seriously we should take the disease and its symptoms. Mr. Pither attended as many therapy sessions as he could fit into his two-week stay to release compressed nerves in his neck, shoulders, chest, wrist and hand, through increasingly firm massage. There was also ultrasound treatment to treat inflammation, applying hot wax to heat up the tissue, as well as ergonomic training. "By the end of the second week," he recalls, "a lot of the throbbing and tingling had pretty much disappeared."
His lesson from all this? Mr. Pither isn't suggesting people get on a plane. RSI, after all, is an umbrella term for many different types of injury, and so one treatment that works for one patient may not work for another. But he says, "don't do nothing, because it's a progressive disease."
We all, if you'll pardon the expression, need to find our India. Judging from readers' correspondence, RSI is something most of us grapple with at some point or another. I have had a long and uneasy truce with my wrists, the pain kept at bay by a daily jog to boost circulation, as well as ergonomic maneuvers such as using an external keyboard so I can prop my laptop closer to eye-level atop old textbooks, and alternating the mouse between my usual right hand and my left. I've recently adopted some new tactics, including a wonderful piece of software called WorkRave (for Windows and Linux users, free from
www.workrave.org), which reminds you when to take keyboard breaks, and occasionally using speech-recognition software like Nuance Communication Inc.'s Dragon NaturallySpeaking, which gives your hands a rest by letting the computer convert your speech into text or commands. My tip: Get used to these approaches when your hands are feeling fine, so that if they do start to hurt, the switch is less of a hassle. (You can find more tips on my blog:
www.loosewireblog.com.)
But be careful, says Dr. Sharan: Self-treatment only works in mild cases. Anything worse, and sufferers should seek help. Fail to do so and RSI will tighten its ugly grip. "Early and appropriate medical intervention is not negotiable and it is worth traveling across continents for this if need be," says Dr. Sharan.
Realizing this might sound like a sales pitch, he adds: "This is a doctor speaking, not a businessman."
找到治疗你肌肉劳损的“印度”
如果你的胳膊、腕子或是手总感到麻痛，我可没建议你立刻搭乘飞机去印度，不过就其寓意而言，“去印度”是个不错的建议。就拿乔恩?皮瑟(Jon Pither)的印度之行来说吧。皮瑟先生身上的英国气可能太重了，因此他不相信命运，但当他被所就职的高科技公司送去印度培训时，皮瑟却撞上了一回好运。一年多来他从手到肩膀一直疼痛不止，皮瑟先没当回事，及至认真去看大夫时，众多英国的医生和专家却对此束手无策。皮瑟早就听说过印度医生迪帕克?沙兰(Deepak Sharan)及其班加罗尔诊所Recoup的大名。作为一个整天不离电脑的软件编程员，皮瑟确信他的疼痛是肌肉劳损所致，而成百上千万办公室职员、音乐家、教师、记者、流水线工人、护士、外科医生、按摩师、孩子以及家庭主妇都在受其困扰。皮瑟回忆说：“这差不多是我最后的机会了。我们这些肌肉劳损患者几乎都被告知会好的。这种话我都听腻了。”
在结束一天的培训后，皮瑟谢绝了同事们邀他出去喝一杯的好意，找了部黄包车直奔沙兰的诊所。诊所给他的第一印象并不好：一座狭长的四层楼房在周围低矮的建筑中显得鹤立鸡群。但诊所内部却另有一番景象，虽然陈设简单，但那种严肃和专注的气氛却是皮瑟在英国所不曾见识过的：到处都是医学书籍，墙上一幅照片展示了印度总理因沙兰在治疗脑性麻痹方面取得的成就向其颁奖的情景，皮瑟还发现这里有一个加强班的人在跑前跑后招呼着他。
最重要的是，他见到了沙兰医生本人。皮瑟事后在一篇讲述其求医经历的博客文章中写道：“他耐心听我讲述病情。”(博客网址：
www.pitheringabout.com)。
沙兰医生俨然是肌肉劳损治疗领域的一座偶像。在英国和美国接受过小儿整形外科方面的培训后，沙兰于7年前回到了印度，他吃惊地发现有些只有6岁的孩子就因过度使用电脑和玩游戏机而患上了肌肉劳损。在尝试了多种常规治疗手段而无效后，沙兰和他的助手开始试着将治疗儿童脑性麻痹的手法应用于肌肉劳损治疗。用沙兰的话说，他“发现这种技术非常适合于治疗肌肉劳损。”渐渐地沙兰的病人群体从患肌肉劳损的孩子扩展到他们的父母和亲戚，甚至那些因员工遭受患肌肉劳损之苦而忧心忡忡的高科技公司。目前已有14个国家的外国病人造访过沙兰的诊所，这些像皮瑟一样的外国人不远万里上门求医表明，一些人治疗自己肌肉劳损症的心情是多么迫切。而这一事实也应使我们其他人明白，对这种病症及其早期征兆绝不能掉以轻心。
皮瑟在他为期两周的培训期间尽可能多地接受了沙兰的治疗，通过强度不断增大的按摩，逐步使颈部、肩部、胸部、腕部和手部紧张的神经得到放松。沙兰还用超声波疗法治疗炎症，用热 来加热人体组织，他还要病人接受人体工程学训练。皮瑟回忆说：“到第二周结束时，我的疼痛感已大为缓解。”他从自己的这段经历中学到了什么？皮瑟并不建议人们盲目飞往印度就医。造成肌肉劳损的原因毕竟有许多种，对一个人有效的疗法未必适用于另一个人。但皮瑟也说：“不要听之任之，因为症状会逐渐加重。”如果你不介意我这么说，其时我们都需要找到自己的“印度”。
从读者来信看，我们多数人都或多或少会尝到肌肉劳损之苦。我自己就费了好大劲才止住了手腕疼痛，治疗的方法一是每日漫步以促进血液循环，二是从改变外部环境入手，比如说为我的笔记本电脑配一个单独的键盘，这样我就能把电脑垫在旧课本上以便其屏幕离我的眼睛更近些，又比如经常改变鼠标的设置以便能够左右手换着操纵它。我最近又采取了一些新办法，比如说用上了一款名为WorkRave的软件(Windows和Linux操作系统的用户可登录网址
www.workrave.org免费下载这一软件)，它能提醒你什么时候应该手离键盘歇上一会，此外我还会不时使用一下语音识别软件，如Nuance Communication Inc.开发的Dragon NaturallySpeaking，这一软件能将你的话转变成文字或操作指令，从而使你的手得到片刻休息。
我的诀窍是：在你的手还没有不适感时就要熟悉这些手段，这样一旦你的手出现了肌肉劳损症状，转用这些能缓解症状的手段时就不会太费力(更多诀窍请看我的博客
www.loosewireblog.com)。但沙兰医生提醒人们当心：自我治疗只适用于症状不严重的时候。如果病情加重就应该去看医生。如果不这样做肌肉劳损症将收紧它勒在你身上的绳套。沙兰说：“及时和正确的医疗干预绝不可少，如果需要远涉重洋去求医也是值得的。”或许意识到自己这番话像是在做广告，他又说：“这是医家之言，而非商人之语。”
Jeremy Wagstaff
