Musicians with Dystonia Bulletin Board

I would agree with Jonny. The more you focus on the problem - in a negative way - the bigger the problem becomes. Worrying about FD, trying to fight it before it happens, even being concious that 'you have FD' and being aware of your hands movements and responses as you you go about your daily tasks can make things worse, it's a snowball effect.

Whilst it is true that focal dystonia in musicians is usually task specific, it does not take much to see uncontrolled contractions appearing in similar tasks (in my case, turning on a light switch and doing up shirt buttons used to trigger the same response.) It simply means the threshold is lowering, for the reasons I give above. The body prepares for movement the microsecond you make the decsion to do it. If that pathway is already screwed, it is like forcing water down a blocked plughole - the sink overflows.

See my post here, I reversed these 'spreading syptoms':
http://www.dystonia-bb.org/forums/mwd/posts/1807.html

There are ways out of this (FD), they take work. Unfortunately I think a positive frame of mind is essential, especially to 'let go' as Jonny mentions, and really to not fear or worry about the FD. It is like going on stage and not caring about making a mistake. That is not easy and I can't imagine how difficult it is for someone with acute depression to do that.

Understanding your own threshold and it limits, experiencing how you *can* control things under that, is a useful tool for confidence and recovery too. Indeed, some have used 'slow down therapy' as their primary means to recover and this is based entirely on the idea of re-establishing and relearning motor control below the FD theshold and slowly raising that threshold. This applies to you too, even though you are getting symptoms when you are not playing. Everyone has their threshold, the question for you is where is yours?

Feeding the senses helps along the process. Nancy Byl came up with a load of 'sensory reducation' exercises that help re-establish the sensory motor pathways (touch typing, learning braille, identifying dominoes by touch alone, feely bags with small objects to seek out etc., etc). (when your condition is more stable you can do similar things with your instrument to enhance every movement that feels free, you seek ways to amplify those experience to really embed them in memory using your senses.).

Simply changing your perception of how things 'work' or move helps too. I get a visibly different reaction in my fingers according to how I perceive and visualise the plucking action actually takes place.