Yep, I'm the same Vrae. When I had more burning in the early days with my knee, I had a lot more swelling. Now there is only small swelling, and predominantly it is cold and thin... I hate the cold pain. But I hate the burn too My husband ask me which I preferred.....Hobsons Choice I told him, when it's really cold I think that's the worst - but when it burns up badly, I think that's the worst. It's all horrible.

With the spread of my CRPS, each area has started similarly, and the symptoms have been similar. The coldness is now in my left arm up to my neck, and up my leg to my hip. I get that tingling cold burn and numbness in my fingertips at times, I find stretching out my palms and fingers, and rotating my wrists helps. Doing some desensitization stuff with the pad part helps it too.

Renee, regarding the pins and needles and numbness, I get that sometimes in the mornings. My pain doc said its more likely to be part of the CRPS nerves playing up, especially as its after sleep, when you could have had your arm/wrist/hand in a position that stressed it a bit. Try not to panic. If its happening every morning, or regularly at other times, then definitely get it checked further - but as my doc said, the process of getting checked for other problems is very stressful, and so often it can end up fruitless and part of the CRPS. It's each our own decision as to whether each new symptom is serious enough (in our own opinion) for us to want to pursue every avenue...

I think calm thinking (as relaxing as we can get it lol ) and finding a way to live with the strange and worrying parts of this condition can save us a lot of heartache in the doctors room and hospitals. Of course some stuff is serious and warrants more investigation, and you dont want to overlook it. But we can also end up over thinking this thing to the extent that we are continually worrying about the many things that could be going on. It's a tricky judgement call that would be a lot easier if our general docs sung from the same sheet as us...

Take care Renee, and I hope you get some sleep tonight.

Bram.