I would steer away from doctors you have to educate about CRPS except as a stop-gap measure until you find one who does. If a doctor doesn't understand this disease I don't see how they can treat you for it. It is complex and as you know, symptoms change and morph over time. By all means find someone experienced with CRPS whether they are neurology or anesthesiology.

Drexel is where the esteemed Dr. Schwartzman was before he retired. His treatment and research interest was CRPS so I imagine they are quite familiar with it there. Dr. Philip Getson, D.O. is in nearby Cherry Hill. He has done talks for RSDSA and I am pretty sure he prescribes low dose naltrexone which may be something new to consider. It is currently under study by Stanford for use with CRPS. There are also other doctors listed by state on the RSDSA website.

Chronic pain is its own disease process. There are measurable changes in the spinal cord and in the way the brain interprets pain. If you had any sort of nerve injury there are a host of chemical and physical changes that occur in the nerve as a result. All of these things dramatically alter the way a chronic pain patient's body and nervous system interpret pain.

This is not your fault. This is not in your head (unless you wanna count brain changes). And it is not something you can just buck up and tolerate. After 8 years of pain your system is no longer like a normal persons and should not be treated as such.

People who have not had severe, debilitating pain cannot understand this as Neurochic said. You will need to educate them on chronic pain and changes to the nervous system from CRPS. Sometimes I find this is best done as a printed out summary from an expert so people can firmly grasp the black and white version written by an outside party. There is a recent post just a few lines down on the CRPS forum with an nice info link from Bluesfan.

Hang in there and take care of yourself. Ask your family to take a look at some easily understood articles. You need their support not their ire! If they can't be supportive they can at least get educated enough to be neutral.

IMHO - I too would be a little concerned about a med you have an allergic reaction too...just sayin'.