YES! It really really is weird...

Strangely enough, I had exactly that conversation with a student today. She asked how the crips affected me, and I was explaining about the sympathetic system misfiring (I know it's more complex than that lol) and she was completely fascinated by how on earth it could happen. She asked why they couldn't treat it better, how was it caused, how long does it last... I said 'they just don't know. They don't really know very much about quite a few things, it turns out'

When I was researching it a lot in the early days of diagnosis, I was often in two minds about the darn thing - on one hand completely frustrated and being driven to distraction by the pain, and on the other being utterly fascinated by how your body can get it quite so wrong on so many levels.

It is very interesting. Sometimes it helps to remind myself of that. We really are special folk. Even if we would rather not be

Good luck today and tomorrow, fellow Cripsarians. Smile and know how amazing you are...and remember that diseases like ours are what pushes forward medical understanding of many conditions and body processes. I know there could be a lot more CRPS research going on, but there is some happening, and more in the pipeline, and other related conditions are being studied too. There's always hope.

Bram