Vlad Crisu: I look forward all day to the XpressPads time of the day

Hey, Andreas!

I read your latest blog post on the XpressPads website a few days ago, about Walter, the Canadian veteran who is using XpressPads as a management tool for his PTSD. Man, what a valuable read that was! I bet it was amazing to read that and feel that your work is paying off so hard to someone with such an issue as PTSD.

Vlad Crisu Finger Drumming with iRig Pads and Addictive Drums 2

Anyway, where I am getting with this is that I have a small health condition which XpressPads has so far been unexpectedly improving. I am now 37 years old and, when I was 11, I was involved in an accident and almost lost my right arm below the elbow. The flesh was severed with a piece of glass all the way to the bone, including arteries (I lost a lot of blood and was barely saved by my dad from bleeding out), nerves, muscles, tendons etc, all in the elbow area.

It was my lucky day though, because 2 amazing surgeons (neuro and general surgery) put all my stuff back together again and saved my arm. The only problem that was left beside the scar (see attached photo for reference) is that I lost all tactile feeling for 3 of the fingers (thumb, index and middle finger), they were not able to fix that. In the second attached photo you can see that my right hand index and middle finger look shorter and thinner than the left ones, which is because I have hardly been using them for the past 26 years. They are atrophied.

I can manage to hold cuttlery to eat with the right hand, I can hold stuff, I can somewhat type a keyboard, use a mouse with some pain and write with an ugly handwriting 🙂 but you can burn my 3 fingers or freeze them or hit them and I barely feel anything. I can also not feel anything inside my pockets, for that I have to use the pinky and ring finger, which have not been affected. Not all feeling in the 3 fingers is gone, but most of it is.

Because of that, I have become accustomed, over the years, to use my left hand for most stuff that requires finger sensitivity (turning lights on/off, locking/unlocking doors, tieing/untieing shoelaces, using phone/smartphone, typing most letters on the keyboard, peeling fruit, picking up stuff from the floor etc etc, basically a lot of things).

Because I was so young when it happened, it later proved very difficult to change this and try to make myself use the right hand more. I always had to consciously make the effort to use the hand. I always do it for a while and then I forget and things get back to normal, meaning me using only my left hand for most stuff other than the ones mentioned above.

This i where XpressPads comes in 🙂 so in less than 2 weeks since starting practising, I noticed increased strength in the 3 fingers (coincidentally, they are the only 3 fingers used in the one-pad-controller setup, and I have been sneaking in some thumb playing as well although I am still in the Beginner section), the muscles are again used and it feels great to be able to grab stuff better now! But the BEST thing is that I have noticed doing some of the stuff I almost never did the past 26 years.

One morning I was peeling an orange and I just became conscious that I was using my 3 fingers to do it! It might not sound like a big deal, but for me it is! I have not done that in 26 years! I also started noticing typing more letters on the keyboard with the 3 fingers, using the mouse with less pain because less effort is needed to click the buttons, I am now unlocking doors, scrolling the smartphone screen with the thumb, picking up stuff, even if I still cannot feel most of the stuff I am doing this is HUGE.

The alternative hand motions used in the XpressPads technique must have done some rewiring in the parts of my brain that have not been used all these years, because it’s all happening without me specifically wanting to do it 🙂

There you go, Andreas, sorry if this has taken a lot of your time to read, but I am having such a good time and such benefits from XpressPads that I just can’t keep to myself. It’s my little “me” time at night after the girls go to bed (my wife and daughter) and I look forward all day to the XpressPads time of the day. You know those 20 benefits Walter listed for his PTSD? I have noticed most of them happening to me, too. Which is why I think more people deserve to experience XpressPads.

Thanks a lot for everything, Andreas, you have made my life a lot better with XpressPads.

Peace,

Vlad

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