I really did not find a good solution to this part of recovery. There seems to be a very fine line that one has to tread when the condition has become essentially chronic. I used to used a visual analogy for myself. Normally one's body is in equilibrium, at the bottom of a valley a position the body knows well. After any stress or strain the body naturally returns to this state of equilibrium. It is possible, after great stress to temporarily shift the body far enough away from the equilibrium point that it does not automatically shift back. The new position is, however, not very stable, and it takes little work to get the body to fall back into equilibrium. If on the other hand, the body is in this unnatural state for a period of time it becomes more focused on it, and begins to forget the old equilibrium point. Eventually the natural tendency after some time with ongoing problems is for the body to drift back to this unnatural and dysfunctional state. Instead of normality being maintained automatically it is a struggle to stay well and one must constantly battle a tendency to drift back into the problem state. This means that the TP's, unless continually worked on, will automatically re-activate by themselves. It is a matter off a constant struggle to find and maintain a normal state of body and mind. The aim is to hold onto it long enough that the body begins to forget the dysfunctional state and slowly settles back into the normal state again. This takes time, but eventually it becomes easier and easier to remain there, and even if there is a flare up, which may still be quite bad, if you take remedial action quickly normality is much faster to regain. Basically flare ups will continue to occur, but will occur less often, and you'll recover from them faster.

Now, many years after I started my recovery I can get away with many things that I wouldn't have dreamed of doing whilst I was recovering (e.g. I can work late and hard several nights in row and get some aches and pains back again, but a bit of rest and relaxation, some cool and stretch, and a massage -from a qualified massage therapist, and I'm back to normal very quickly).

I would expect, however, that even many years after recovering for those who have suffered quite badly the "valley of normality" is always going to remain a little less safe. Compared to the average person we may always remain more susceptible to leaving this valley and losing our way in the mountains.

To help visualise these ideas I have attached a series of pictures that I originally made up for a talk that I gave on my experiences to the local OOS/RSI support group.

The idea is that, under normal conditions we can cope with quite high levels of physical and mental stress. These might have us uncomfortably 'climbing the walls' about 'valley of normality', but with a break and a little time off (the weekend perhaps) will quickly drift back and recover from this stress.

However, prolonged stress can send us up into the 'mountains', and if you spend enough time up there you can begin to lose your way and get stuck in a 'rut', or 'hole'. If we don't find our way back quickly this hole starts becoming deeper and more difficult climb out of. At the same time normality is disappearing from our bodies memory and will become increasingly harder to find.

Eventually one has to find this normality again (or try and guess where it was) and then precariously balance whilst waiting for time to allow the old hole to gradually shrink, and allow normality to become more familiar to your body, until finally it becomes a comfortable valley again, and our new equilibrium point. Until this happens one is constantly sliding down and climbing back up again, putting in a lot of work to try and maintain the position of normality long enough for it to be remembered by our bodies again.

Well, this was my view of things anyway.