Hi there - sorry for not replying - things have been a bit hectic here
Alison has been off baclofen for 5 days now with no noticable difference in either the spasms or swelling
The physio did a home visit on Wednesday and said to try to keep the leg elevated as much as possible when rested but nothings changed at the moment - suppose its just one of thise flares we sometimes see
Had a meeting with school mid-week to discuss Alison going back to school on a part-time (afternoon) basis after half term (so returning the first full week in Novemeber). Not too sure what the outcome will be as they are really worried about the risks of her leg getting knocked in corridors, classes, labs etc etc etc. They are thinking of letting Alison do her lessons in the "Learning Zone" (a Library / IT Suite) but there are problems in that there will be no actual tuition or socialisation - the main problem is that for Education Department to provide a support assistant,escort, scribe etc she will need to have a "Statement of Educational Needs" in place and that won't be through till the end of this year - so its a bit of a mess at the moment
On a more positive note I managed to get Alison to open her thumb just enough to instert a really thick highlighting pen into her fist and she managed to write a little by herself for the first time in weeks - she was so thilled as were we all !!!!
I also showed the Physio how I handle her around the house by supporting her on crutches as it keeps some form of weight-bearing through the good leg and also minimal weight-bearing through the heel of the bad leg
She saw the balance / coordination problem I was talking about and told Alison to take smaller steps but try as she might, she could not make each step the same - even with intense concentration - she was willing the steps to be the same but every other step the legs shot out and did their own thing
the physio did say that she now knew what she was up against and will try and look at ways to combat this when Alison is readmitted to hospital next week for three days of intensive physio
Both Alison and myslef would be quite happy to settle for how she was when she was first diagnosed with RSD, as an intermediate step - to have the pain but be independant would be an improvement - though we can't help wondering of things would have ever got this bad if the pain team had not intervened with the nerve block and meds - none of which were successful in any way.
Hopefully things will start to improve more soon !!!!