How did Dvorak solve this for you? And, how was it permanent?

The difference between Dvorak and Qwerty, in a nutshell, is that Dvorak was designed scientifically while Qwerty was designed in a mostly arbitrary way to avoid jamming in the early designs of typewriters.

Dvorak optimizes alternating hands (ever felt dumb typing "street" or "states" in Qwerty?), useful keys on the home row (aoeuidhtns VS asdfghjkl;), typing inwards (try tapping your fingers in rapid succession inwards on your desk. Now try outwards or in a random order...) and typing with the strong fingers (The farther from the pinky the better) and the right hand (usually the strongest one), among other things.

Those features reduce stress injury because they result in less finger movement and more natural dynamics.

However, I think Dvorak actually puts some fingers to even more use than QWERTY? I had pain in my index finger, and it seemed to me with DVORAK I would use it even more, as the most common keys would be put on the index finger. I haven't actually tried Dvorak, though, only looked into it.

Again, please do not downvote people for asking simple questions. In this case, dshah's questions are interesting and personally I'd like to know the answers also.