Another continuation of the series of articles on focal dystonia, this time focusing on gradual worsening in 2018 and 2019

By the beginning of summer 2018, I finally knew my diagnosis, with its grand name: focal dystonia. Clearly, the two of us were going to have quite a time together. In July I had my first, and also my last, botulinum toxin injection. It brought no change at all. After reading several articles, I came away with the impression that it didn't help musicians anyway.

In July 2018, I joined Betwind, an alternative rock project, as its bass player. Playing with a pick worked well, so I more or less stopped worrying about my right hand. During the summer, I also began working on my long-postponed album of songs, Rozpaky. I finished incomplete songs, wrote lyrics and composed music. I practised exclusively on electric guitar and bass.

After the summer holidays, I tried the classical guitar again, always with the same result. But I began noticing an odd change. At first, my middle and ring fingers had curled into my palm. Now, whenever I tried to play, my whole hand began twisting to the right, away from the guitar, while my fingers remained extended outwards. The dystonic symptoms were also starting to affect my index finger.

During the holidays, I had still been able to type on the computer without restrictions. By September and October, I could barely approach the keyboard. For example, I could no longer finish entering lesson records during breaks and had to do them in the evening instead. Dystonia gradually began affecting all my everyday activities: shaving, brushing my teeth, holding cutlery and so on.

Towards the end of 2018, I had an unusual idea: turn the guitar around and see what happened if I played left-handed. I remembered a colleague who had once told me he began as a right-handed player but struggled, then turned the guitar around and became an excellent left-handed player. I was quite surprised. My left hand worked beautifully on the strings, while my right hand showed no dystonic symptoms on the fretboard. Who could explain that to me?

In lessons, I therefore sometimes played right-handed with a pick. When I needed to demonstrate finger technique on the strings, I played left-handed. During spring 2019, I finished my album Rozpaky and recorded it myself. But while recording replacement parts in May 2019, I unfortunately noticed that my hand was becoming stiff even when I used a pick. At first, I hadn't realised it at all. Dystonia had crept into this activity too, and that was a tremendous blow.

Gradually, dystonic symptoms also appeared when I played left-handed, with my right hand on the fretboard. Doing anything with my right hand became increasingly difficult. Dystonia was beginning to win everywhere. Even reading Braille music had become very hard, making it more and more difficult to teach the children.