In August of 1996 I suddenly started experience severe pain in my hands whenever I typed. Although I had occasionally had hand problems before, which subsided quickly with time away from the computer, I knew this one was qualitatively different. I was afraid -- even then it was hard for me to imagine that something like this might just heal on its own relatively quickly. I tried rest and various alternative input methods, including the DataHand, which I found to be worse than a keyboard, and voice recognition. At first this seemed very promising, although rather frustrating, but after a while it made my throat so hoarse that even after I stopped completely, it took a month before I could speak without pain again.
After a few months I had to quit my job. By this point, I was on very close terms with pain, and I hoped that eventually I would heal with enough rest and separation from the causes of my injury. Unfortunately, things didn't get better after this. In fact, the problem got worse, and soon spread to my shoulders, neck, and back. Eventually, I was diagnosed with acquired dystonia (this means that your muscles involuntarily tighten and don't relax properly while you're at rest), as a complication of thoracic outlet syndrome (this means that a small area of your upper chest in from the shoulders has gotten compressed too much; this irritates the nerves passing through this area, which includes most of the nerves leading to the hands, neck and upper back). These conditions are complex and poorly understood, and ironically, almost completely irrelevant to how I was able to start healing myself.
10 months after I quit my job, I was in a sorry state. I couldn't type, write more than my newly-shortened signature, drive, carry objects, fold laundry, read books unless they were held in front of me precisely at eye level, and had all sorts of other restrictions that made my life truly a hell on earth. At that point, I finally went to a chronic pain doctor, which spelled the beginning of the end of that phase of hell on earth. Although, ironically, he came up with all those diagnoses, and believed them himself enough to try putting me on a whole bunch of wacky and way-off-base medications, he did put me on Neurontin, a nerve medication normally used for epileptics that is also a potent pain reliever, especially for neuropathic pain (pain caused by the nerves, the kind I seem to have).
After that, I went though a whole lot of physical therapy, most of which did not an iota of good because either (a) the physical therapist didn't know what the hell they were doing, or (b) they didn't understand the seriousness of my condition (which, fortunately for me but unfortunately for doctors and the like, had few outward manifestations that would make it clear that something was indeed wrong), and as a result gave me way-too-advanced or just inappropriate exercise or (c) I was in so much pain that almost any exercise would be bad. I really needed a physical therapist who got to know me deep down as a person and became aware of what my rather unusual and difficult-to-pin-down condition really involved.
Now came a final bit of irony: My mother is a chronic pain specialist, and has been doing this for years, well before, in fact, when I started having problems. She was a big supporter of using opioids -- morphine, oxycodone, and other "bad" drugs that many doctors, including the previous one who gave me the Neurontin, won't even consider using because of so much negative press (most of which is completely and utterly incorrect) about these medications. My mother had been suggesting for awhile that I start taking such medications, and I had been resisting. But by this point, there wasn't anything else it seemed I could do. My last doctor was declaring me "permanent and stationary" (a Worker's Compensation term), saying there was nothing more that could be done for me medically (a big load of bullshit, of course).
By this time it was 1999. Around this time, I moved back to Tucson, where I had grown up and where I was returning because, with all my health problems, I just couldn't take the damp, cold, windy days of San Francisco. I loooooove hot and dry, and Tucson's the place to be for that. My mother arranged for a doctor she knew to start me on a trial of Sustained-Release Morphine, which truly worked wonders, and had many fewer side effects than I possibly could have imagined given the potency of the medication. Suddenly I was able to drive again! I could also write without problems, and even type a few keystrokes! Unfortunately, above a certain dose of the morphine I started getting weird pain in my knees and feet, so instead I kept the morphine at a dose where the side effects didn't occur, and added on another sustained-release opiate. So far, this has also worked wonders, and has no bad side effects either. Now, I can type a fair amount -- sometimes up to 2-3 hours a day! Other things, like reading, are getting easier in different positions, and I am able to attend 2-3 art classes at school and do the work required (some of which has been done on a computer in a draw program, and required that I do a lot of mousing and such).