I, like many of you, visited with relatives the past few days and the topic of CRPS came up. I have a large family and between all of us we have 3 nurses, a pharmacist, a physician assistant, and a med student. We had a very interesting conversation with some agreement and some disagreement.

One of the topics we debated centered on diagnosing CRPS. Because it is so important to start treatment as early as possible are some doctors forced to make a premature diagnosis? Are they trying to rule out or confirm? I was under the impression that the only way to “diagnose” CRPS was to rule out all other conditions. So do you start treatment before you are able to make a firm diagnosis? Or are doctors too quick to write a prescription without looking into other causes of the symptoms?

We have all been told the CRPS is not as rare as once believed. Is this because people are becoming more aware or because not everyone is using the same criteria? Many of us saw several doctors in a variety of specialties before receiving our final diagnosis. However, is one specialty better qualified to make the diagnosis than others? I was very fortunate that my doctors remained in constant contact with each other before deciding on CRPS. My personal opinion is that CRPS requires a multidisciplinary approach. Many times in hospitals they have “teams” for certain condition. One common team is the “stroke team” which consists of neurology, cardiovascular, physical therapy and others.

Sorry for such a long post. I just really wanted to know what others who share in this living hell think about this.