Yes I will fill you in on the injury that I sustained. Bare with me because this is a long story the doctors at the time thought it originally started with stress fractures of the tibia but ruled that out because of the time frame when the symptoms began.

Originally my team and I went on a 15 mile hump and during the course of the hump in a hot zone i started complaining of very tender spots in the mid tib of the right leg. Well since being in the field no x ray machines around the navy corpman basically said either shin splints or stress fractures. He leaned more toward stress fractures because there was no swelling from the shin splints.

The hump continued at some ibuprofen help. A couple of weeks later we ended up in a hostile environment and a bullet shattered my right femur. Med evac out and had surgery to repair the injury. Two days after surgery my entire leg was triple in size, all the way down to my foot. The doctors at the time thought that it was infection. Blood counts was fine and they were puzzled. I was then shipped to another facility where a doctor that literally looked like he was a vet for the dinosaurs came into the room looked at my leg and said I know what you have son. Tests was ran and the diagnoses came back as RSD it was not called CRPS at that time. He actually called it reflex sympathetic dystrophy syndrome. Even with the surgery fixing my femur I could not walk for an entire year. The same doctor at that time told me that I was forced with either amputation or to bare the pain and possible death years later down the road. He informed me that the pain will be so harsh that many end up taking their own lives because of it. He explained how it can cross over at the blink of an eye because of other injuries that could occur and left the option in my hands.

I decided against it and continued to press on. Numerous epidurals bier blocks and therapy did not help I basically learned to walk again by using crutches and then to a cane and then back to running in 1 year time frame. RSD started in my thigh and then traveled to the lower leg and foot. The doctors said that RSD would have remained in my thigh if stress fractures would not have been present in my tibia. The right foot had some metatarsal fractures that I caused because when learning to walk I could not feel my leg and I would literally have to take both hands grab my thigh and toss my leg in front of me. I hit numerous foot lockers with my foot therefore breaking it because I was so determined to walk when the foot hit the lockers at base i could not feel it.. Sad i know but a marine never gives up.

RSD then went to my foot which slowed down the recovery in walking because my foot was then placed in a cast which is a big no no with RSD i almost lost circulation and almost lost the foot when i went to sick bay for this reason. The cast was removed and I was on bed rest for 3 weeks all the effort I made to walk was back to square one again.

After bed rest I made numerous trips to augusta georgia at the eisenhower medical center and underwent numerous procedures while under anesthetics after months of this the doctors folded their hands and basically told me that I would need to exit the Marines under a medical discharge. I went for a C&P board evaluation and the NAVY did not recognize RSD at that time as a medical discharge and I was returned fit for duty.. KEEP in mind I could still not walk or run or do my MOS at that time. So my doctors fought the C&P board and changed the diagnoses to not only RSD but added paralysis to the right leg as secondary diagnosis. Two weeks later my board came back approved and with a disability rating. It took me 2 years after discharge for the va to get all my papers and approve my rating and to get me in to be seen. Two years of pain and aggravation and during that two years I was in an accident and fractured the left ankle and the RSD transferred to that area. Now it has been since the year 2000 literally since being fully involved in the VA system and they still have me at a very low 20% disability rating.

So with that I have furthered my education and continue to work although the pain gets to me. Sadly the va does not even know what to do for this issue at hand.

I hope this gives you an idea on how I contracted RSD the only thing that I left out was after the combat injury the corpman cut the bdu's off my leg and the laid them on the ground and due to bleeding he picked them back up and applied pressure as they were applying a tourniquet. The BDU's were contaminated at that moment and the doctors were originally leaning to the dirt, and chemicals in the area that contributed to the RSD setting up.