My story started in 2005 on mother's day. I was waiting for my kids to come over and pamper me and decided to go out on my deck in the back and sit in the sun and take pictures of my cat. As I was going back a portion of my deck broke through where I was standing and I found myself dangling through the deck with my left leg in a pressure lock through the deck. I could not free myself. I yelled for my husband to help and he tried to but could not help me so ran to get a crow bar to break the deck further. He managed to pull me out after that and I had some rug burn type of markings and of course splinters galore. The leg swelled in the area it was viced. I decided I should go get it checked since it was also the leg that a few years earlier I had a ruptured achilles tendon and went through months of surgery, wound clinic healing, and the rest. I hated to think that I had done something that would mess with that. Well everything looked good at the ER visit and I came home. Nothing much was going on with it for awhile.
I was in some physical therapy at the time and the therapist as she was working with me noticed that I had a rash that was forming on the left leg and it was itchy to me and soon became very red and inflamed. They too thought I had an infection.
So I was put on antibiotic right away and the Dr. kept a close eye on me. After on day I went to the Dr. office he called me in a panic later that night to go to the ER immediately that they were thinking now I had a blood clot after my MRI examination that day. So I did what he said and was hospitilized. The next day they did some ultrsounds and found three spots that looked suspicious of blood clots. So they decided to operate on the leg. The went in but what they found was only dried pooled blood from the accident. When I woke up from the surgery they had packed my leg rather than sew it up. I now had to deal with irrigating and packing my own wound over a course of time. They still did not think it was RSD at the time. However the first physical therapist did mention she thought it might be.
Over the next 6 months the wound would not heal on its own and I had to go to wound clinic every week and have them use a scalpel on it and cut away the tissue so as to spark the healing process. It was the longest and not so much fun process. The hypersensitivity grew during this time and the would Dr. really wanted someone to send me for a nerve block. My dr. wasn't convinced of the RSD and would not suggest this.
I did finally have a nerve block that was lumbar and it did nothing. So went back in later and they did one directly into the leg. That did work and swelling went down almost immediately. I was very encouraged.
The pain however continued and I was sent off to a pain dr. that was more like a shrink. He was nice enough though but he was only the pill prescriber. That was it. It was annoying to go to someone that really wasn't understanding the problem.
Over the course it was finally agreed upon that I did have RSD. They wanted to put me on amnitriptylin and I was not happy with that. I did not want to do that and when I went to the Dr. that wanted it I walked out of her office and back to my family Dr. and said no what next.
Swelling and pain continued to be my life and still is. I am in a lot of denial so I want to minimize it even in here and find myself correcting my thoughts to admit that I have this severe pain that doesn't go away.
I changed Dr. one day and went to a ARNP she is very good and does a lot of research. She wanted me to try a different pain dr. and that started me in a much better direction. I still go to her today. She knew about my condition and understood the pain was real. She did not care that I needed some medicine and did not think I was some junky coming in off of the streets.
The first time she saw me she thought I should go for lymphodema treatment. That was through a physical therpist. I had light massage and desensitization with wrapping. I was prescribed a pump that helps to take the swelling off and its pretty comfortable to be on. That is pretty cool since I can't wear socks and just the touch of my kitty loving me sends sparks up me.
I completed that treatment and graduated to pool therapy which really helped me. I felt better doing something if nothing else.
Today I see my regular dr. the pain dr. and just finished up with some physical therapy unrelated to the RSD, but since I could not do many of their exercises I asked my pain dr. if I could go back to the pool therapy. I just went this week for the intake eval on that and will start when my name comes up on the waiting list.
My medicines:
gabapentin 300mg
hydrocodone 7.5 x 4
metacarbal as needed 3x day
Thanks for listening to my story...whew long one.