Thread by @yomilly

I’ve been a bit more quiet lately because I’ve been taking some time off work and my usual activities to focus on my health for a few months. This is a candid thread about some of my health struggles and what I’m up to.

I’m doing another round of intensive physical therapy and chiropractic care, but this time outside of worker’s compensation (which I can now do because worker’s comp deemed me “permanent and stationary” i.e., not getting any better, or rather I’ve hit some maximums for therapies)

While under workers comp, you can’t be treated by any doctors outside the system, which can be frustrating if you’re not getting the right treatment, and I’m pretty convinced it’s near impossible to heal from complicated cumulative injuries under workers comp for a few reasons.

Workers comp is complicated to navigate, which makes it difficult to know how to best advocate for yourself, and it’s not set up well for treating chronic and cumulative injuries, like RSI.

Finding doctors who will take your pain seriously can be difficult. I felt like I was constantly trying to prove I wasn’t making things up to get out of work, which seems to be a common assumption of folks filing work comp claims.

This isn’t isolated to work comp, but there’s an assumption that all typing injuries are carpal tunnel, and therefore isolated to the wrist.

If there’s one piece of advice I’d give to anyone seeking treatment for RSI: if your doctor is treating it as just a wrist issue and not considering your whole upper body, get a new doctor.

It’s taken me years to figure out that muscles in my upper back are weak, which negatively affects my posture and causes other muscles to overwork, which leads to muscles in my shoulders/neck tightening up, pinching nerves, blood vessels, etc. to my arms and lower extremities.

My first doctor in workers comp gave me wrist braces, told me to take Aleve, and go back to work, and said it wasn’t possible to do any further damage.

In hindsight, I can now see how inappropriate that treatment was for my injury, but it was hard to question in the moment. I mean, he’s a doctor and should know best, right?

I had a really difficult time for the first 9 months or so of this injury. I was feeling increasingly burnt out and terrified that the burn out would eventually leave me incapable of fighting to heal my injury and save my career.

Approaching a breaking point, I started struggling with anxiety, depression. I had a bad experience getting trigger point injections, which caused me to have what I know now to be flashbacks of some trauma from years ago. Flashbacks are a symptom of PTSD.

After the trigger point injections, my anxiety and depression became intense. I was having regular panic attacks on my way to work and had a hard time functioning. I was overwhelmed. I knew I needed professional help and I was dealing with something serious.

A few things helped me turn this situation around:
1. Medication helped me tremendously by giving me the bandwidth to cope and continue to fight for myself
2. A friend’s support in my low moments
3. Finding a good therapist
4. Support from my manager and team to try voice coding

I was able to transition to using voice for much of my computer work, which significantly uncomplicated my situation and untangled my RSI healing needs from my work life. This was huge. I still had lots of challenges, but no longer was my career threatened.

Turns out there’s an industry perception that voice coding is a non-solution because it’s inaccurate, slow, and frustrating to use, but my experience was much different. I found it worked much better than I expected and was extremely helpful for me. Why didn’t more people know?

I spoke at a few conferences about it last year. I wanted to challenge the industry perception and raise awareness about voice coding so others could benefit. It was hard work, but fun and fulfilling. I even got to be in a viral video. I’m very very grateful for the experience.

After some reflection, I think the energy I put into the conference talks last year was a healthy fight reflex. There’s an incredible drive that surfaces when facing significant threats to health and well-being, and this was the manifestation for me.

After the conf tour, I no longer felt anxious about losing my career. I had more bandwidth to focus on healing, both mentally and physically. I had found a manageable situation, but I wanted to use the opportunity to explore healing more fully.

I worked with my doctor, therapist, and employer to take a medical leave. It’s been very helpful having this dedicated time, and I’m grateful for having the support of my company and teammates to take this leave knowing I have such a great team to return to.

I have the ability now to be a bit more open about some of my mental health issues I’ve struggled with. I’m sharing in hopes for some catharsis, but also in case my story could be helpful to someone else. If I can help further normalize mental health issues, then it’s worth it.

PTSD/anxiety/depression can be tricky to talk about because there’s risk of triggering symptoms. It took me a full year in therapy to be able to give a one-liner description of the traumatic event I experienced years ago and not induce cascading symptoms. PTSD is a beast.

I feel like now I have the right support medically, professionally, and personally to heal. I have the right recipe, now time to put in the work and hope I come out better on the other end.

I’m hoping I can now actually heal from the trauma I wasn’t able to deal with years ago because I was in crisis mode and didn’t have the resources and support to deal with it. I do now, and it feels like about time.

Thanks to anyone who took the time to read this rambling thread. Thanks for listening. I appreciate all the support I’ve gotten so far in my journey, and I hope someone else may find some value in my story.