Speaking of Causes . . .

C'mon. Let's get real.

--Lynne

PS1: You said it yourself...you've missed the symposiums. Also, in some cases magnets are a benefit. Depends on your case. EMF works for people and animals which require a "jump-start" in their focused circulation (certain area). If the "disturbance" in your body is not circulatory or respondant to an EMF-field, magnets will not work. I always think they are worth a try but they do NOT work for everyone and they do not work in every area of our bodies. It's NOT a panacea.

PS2: As the good docs in Michigan would say (to paraphrase), you can't always make a weird connection like that ~ computers and SD? In my mind, the reason why people with SD and dystonia sit in front of computers and are highly-computer-literate is because they are also HIGHLY intelligent. Dystonia and SD has more to do with your intelligence and neurological-make-up than what equipment you use. It's the cart and the horse or the chicken and the egg. Figure out which came first. It's not the equipment itself. Watch out when you try to make those connections because you might be quite wrong and you might allude and confuse some people who haven't done their research.

Thought your post was slightly harsh! I certainly did not mean to imply that PCs are giving people dystonia. I simply wanted to throw the idea into a forum of informed (and intelligent!) people who could add the prolonged use of old unprotected VDUs to the long list of other possible causes, or triggers.

There was quite a stir in the computer industry 15 years ago when health-conscious people realised that sitting very close to a computer VDU for long periods of time (as I did) exposed users to a potentially harmful EMF, the effects of which are still unclear. Today all monitors comply with pretty tight emission standards and pose no threat, but it was not always so. Nobody thought twice about it when I was programming back in the '80s. And when I purchased computer monitors in 1994/5 I found that most vendors were totally unaware of the issue, and the relatively few monitors which did comply with the best EMI standard at that time (called MPR II) cost a couple of hundred dollars extra. So most systems sold here before 1995 were not compliant. Given these facts plus the high percentage whose diagnosis is idiopathic, I don't think my post was too unreasonable.

I should also make it clear that I was not endorsing magnets as a treatment. I mentioned them only to demonstrate that there is a link, suggested by some, between emf and some dystonia. I agree 100% with your PS1.

Sorry. Certainly no intention to be harsh. Maybe I've attended too many symposiums and done too much research (IOW...I can be accused of being too much into reality and possibly that has gotten the best of me...I plead quilty).

Please feel free to write me on my private e-mail address. I would do the same for you but I don't see an e-mail address for you on this post. I'll scramble and look for your e-mail address on some of your other posts though. Other than that, I have enjoyed your recent posts...seriously. They show alot of intelligence and humor (and I have read them all) so I have alot of respect for you and the recent contributions you have made to this BB and possibly we just need to get to know each other better in order to understand each other so that we don't mis-interpret each other. That last post was not intended to be harsh in any way. I just figured I was doing conversational-spar with another intelligent SD'er. You are correct that, if we don't know each other very well, posts can be misconstrued so I apologize for sounding harsh.

My e-mail address is above so please write me off the BB.

My first post was a bit flippant - wanted some reaction - but I can see from the responses that I should have been more careful, and have tried to clear that up with my second post. I should probably make it clearer still -

I am not referring to the normal PC monitors in widespread use today. My thoughts relate to the small VDUs that were first attached to mainframe computers in the 1970s, and were later used in early PCs in the 80s. At the time, computer people were excited about being able to link directly with a computer, instead of using previous methods like punched cards. In those days nobody was too concerned about occupational health and safety, and I have clear memories of programmers sitting close to their tiny monitors, typing away for hours on end without a break, week in week out, year in year out.
I was such a person. It was after doing this for many years that my cervical dystonia developed. I don't know what happened to other such people. Hence the little niggle in the back of my mind.

So don't throw away your PCs, folks - the sky isn't falling. It's just some guy thinking out loud and not explaining himself clearly. Sorry.

Exactly...on the "cause and effect" thing. That was what was on my mind when I did such an abysmal job of responding to Jeff earlier in this thread. This point (the "temporal association") was mentioned several times at the Michigan Symposium by very skilled doctors. IOW, as the doctors confirmed, just because something happened at the same time as something else doesn't mean they are related in any form whatsoever. They could be but we have to be very careful on those assumptions. The conversation on that subject in Michigan was quite fascinating to me after so many of these types of threads on the BB.

Since you have already identified yourself as a medical professional, thanks for additional medical information on this subject.