Quote:
Originally Posted by vivs001
Hi, I am new and have learned a lot already from reading through old posts. I wanted to introduce myself and also maybe get some opinions whether I even belong here... ?
I was recently diagnosed with possible CRPS by a podiatrist and referred to a pain management doc to confirm the diagnosis. I have to wait 2 weeks for the appointment and I am going nuts researching this condition in the meantime...
It started after a foot sprain in October. It seemed to get better for about a month but never fully recovered. Xray and MRI were normal. An orthopedist put me in a cam boot in November, and that made my pain worse. Shoes that I had previously been able to wear now felt uncomfortably tight and painful. The pain was mostly when weight-bearing, annoying but not unbearable pain, still able to walk with careful choice of footwear, and not a burning pain. Aching or sometimes sharp pain if I put weight on just the wrong part of my foot.
Then I noticed the color and temperature changes in mid-December. My affected foot gets cold to the touch and purple/blue-ish in the evenings. It is bright pink when I wake up the next morning. The temperature never feels warm or hot. It varies from normal temperature to cold, and it will ache and feel stiff when it gets cold. The podiatrist saw the color change and felt the cold when he saw me, and that's why he diagnosed possbile CRPS. He also gave me a cortisone injection, and that has helped with the pain but not the color/temperature weirdness.
It is about 3 months from the initial injury. If this is CRPS, shouldn't it be warm/hot at this stage? Am I already in the chronic (cold) phase? Are there other conditions to rule out? I made a neurology appointment as well, but the wait time is a whole month for that! I know people can't diagnose me on a message board, but maybe you will have some thoughts that would lead me in the right direction. It's very hard to sit here and wait for appointments when I read about how treatment works best within 3 months. I may already have missed that window  |
I missed that "window" of immediate treatment, by several years, so I have never focused much on what they do if it's caught early. What you describe, at least to me, does sound a lot like what we see with CRPS, so your podiatrist may be one of the best and brightest among us, and you may need to thank your lucky stars he threw CRPS out there, because if it is CRPS, then what you need to do in my opinion, is anything and everything they do when CRPS is caught early...whatever they are saying that is.
In other words, treat it like it is and do whatever they do when caught early. This disease is #1 on the pain scale for a good reason, because it's horrific at best, and at worst, many of us can tell you there are no words for a life with it, particularly if it goes systemic (body wide). I am not trying to scare you, but I am trying to motivate you to not play around with this and do whatever they do when it's caught early to improve your prognosis. I couldn't be more emphatic than I am, trying to use written words to emphasize how important this might be for you.
Sure...seek your confirmation by others, but in the immediate, and starting right now, plan for the worst, hope for the best, and to that end, find out what you need to if your podiatrist was right, it is CRPS, you are in the early stages, and you can't afford to wait a month to see somebody to speak words to you. Also, if it is CRPS and the person you wait a month to see isn't as bright as your podiatrist, and misdiagnoses it as "not CRPS" when we later learn it is/was....who pays the cost for that failure to diagnose properly....not the person you waited to see.
It happens....it happened to me.....I saw doctors who spent a lot of time making a diagnosis, a very long time, and I learned after the fact what that would cost me. I should have seen lots of doctors until somebody got it right, but hindsight is 20/20....and you are very fortunate here and now, because regardless of the other professionals you see, you already know what it might be, and if so, what you need to do about it, if your podiatrist is right.
All the best and I hope your podiatrist was wrong, but what you describe sounds CRPS...and, frankly, at least for me, the tell tale signs didn't show up like neon signs until much later in the progression of the disease...maybe because I didnt know what to look for, since noone was telling me "CRPS," but still, CRPS has been progressive for me, so it's very likely you won't see, right now, what you will see in years to come, if your podiatrist is correct.