Such great advice. Thanks Zookster.

I've been suffering for 15 months. My pain started after an assault wherein an individual broke into my house and I was forced to defend myself and fight him out of the house in nothing but my underwear. The fight progressed outside onto the street in front of our house, where my feet sustained a lot of damage as I grappled with / restrained the individual until the cops arrived.

The pain started about a month after in my right foot, but has now progressed to my left (it did so after about a month of pain in the right foot).

I've been diagnosed with sympathetically mediated pain by a pain specialist who sees a number of patients with CRPS. I also had the diagnosis confirmed by a podiatrist. I've had three sympathetic blocks in my lower lumbar on the right side, all of which eliminated the pain completely in my right foot for about 24 hours.

It was the podiatrist, however, that suggested the peroneal nerve injury, given the EMGs I had had previously didn't test that nerve + the MRIs I had were only of the foot, not the ankle. Furthermore, my symptoms started with pain on the top of my foot -- but progressed to involve the bottom as time went on. Also, my symptoms are much worse on my right foot, where I'm positive for "tinels" sign (parathesia when tapping the nerve).

Next up is diagnostic injections to see if we can knock the pain out by blocking that nerve specifically. If it works, I believe they'll then be looking into imaging / other diagnostic methods to determine where exactly the nerve is injured. Hopefully then they can find some sort of entrapment / scar tissue / something to fix up -- gosh that'd just be amazing.

Let me know if there's any other info you need. I have my first peroneal nerve block in two weeks (doc is going on vacation so I have to wait -- ugh!) -- here's hoping it helps.

In the meantime I'm stopping all exercise that involves ankle plantar flexion and just focusing on mellower stuff (walking,c cycling etc). I'm an athelete and have forced myself to keep exercising through all of this. It helps me control the symptoms, but they're now worried that I could be continuouslly aggravating a stretched nerve (I love to run and do crossfit -- yes, a CRPSer who does xfit -- I know, I'm crazy).