Hello, I just signed up.

MY STORY:
I had a two level spinal fusion June 5th 2016, when my son was just 4 MONTHS old. It is my understanding that I developed CRPS type 2 from the surgery or the healing process post-surgery. My surgeon kept giving me months and months of more time, telling me that I need additional time for the nerves to "calm down". He gave me up to 15 or 16 months before he wrote me off to another doctor in the practice and avoided diagnosing me even though I clearly had pain that developed after the surgery and at 6 weeks post op was complaining of pain disproportionate to the initial injury (herniated discs). He gave me a look of disbelief and almost like I was hurting his pride in some way by saying to him I feel WORSE since the surgery. I was just being honest, not rude at all. I said something is wrong here and insisted on getting another MRI, which did not show much compression besides a bulging disc, which after researching since they never would tell me anything, I found that this is also common with this surgery. It's called adjacent segment disease. Basically the lower discs go out I believe due to a disproportionate amount of pressure on the area below the fusion. If he had treated me properly from day 1 I may have had a way to do some reversing of this terrible thing that's now considered incurable and has spread to my opposite extremity. Water under the bridge, but I've struggled with anger dealing with this and felt lied to, as this was never mentioned to me as any possible outcomes with the ACDF surgery. I'd love to know if anyone else here developed this after ACDF.
I was then given no information as to what this is, any pt, exercises, advice or anything else regarding this thing they now believe I have after torturing me with the electrical conductivity test that eliminated other conditions, and which found dysfunction in one region of my effected arm. I was then offered 1 injection and then wrote off again by the same clinic saying they can't help me any longer and they told me to just go to pain management for any other treatment.

WHY I AM HERE:
I'm looking for non invasive ways of treating the pain and allodynia and to find tips and tricks to do normal every day activities like hair and tooth brushing, bathing and dishes, and caring for small children without huge flares. I'm also curious if anyone went into remission during pregnancy and how much of this is related to hormones, the gut and any other thing if u want to speculate or share any info on. I've been my own advocate and taught myself everything I know by research. No one, not even my pain specialist has offered me any advice and I dont get much relief with the meds I am prescribed. I called my doctor asking for a transdermal patch, spray, cream, something for the arm and hand pain as all he has suggested is gabapentin and a weak painkiller in 2 years, oh and the stellar ganglion block, which I guess is better in some way than the other block I tried. I'm hesitant to keep allowing doctors to put needles near my neck at this point, since the risks are not worth it at this moment. I am back and forth with this in terrible flares and am desperate for relief. It has been very agonizing dealing with this clinic also. He then said yes he will write a script for a patch, never sent in, then after leaving a voicemail still never resolved this for me or called me back. So I go back to my buff Google for links again which informed me about lidocaine patches, capsaicin cream, lidocaine spray, compression garments and this forum and will go from here to help myself. No one knows CRPS better than t.hose living with it, so I'm hoping to get good input here.

I am wondering how others delt with the difficulty this can have on raising children and having a marriage. Has your spouse been supportive or made negative comments to you about the disability?

I just ordered compression garments to see if it will help my arm and hand pain. So far the glove helps, but any others suggestions and comments are welcomed, too. I'm still waiting on the sleeves to arrive so we shall see.

Im sorry anyone has to suffer with this, but I mainly just want to know that what I'm going through is validated by others and that I'm not alone in this. No matter how much explaining I have done I do not feel like anyone out there actually understands.

Thanks so much for listening! I have so much balled up stuff to talk through with people about this who understand.

Angeline