Hello and Welcome to Neurotalk - you will meet many great people here who I am sure will be more than happy to help you in anyway they possibly can!!

I'm so sorry to hear that you also suffer from RSD and really hope you can find something that works for you and puts you into remission real soon!! I suffer from RSD in my left leg and right arm - I developed it when I was 12 years old after an ankle sprain and am nearly 14 now.

I have only had one nerve block and I didn't respond very well to it at all. My Doctor injected directly into my RSD leg which is something you should NEVER do unless you absolutely have to and it took me off my feet and I spent 13 months in a wheelchair!!!!! It was only after I had the nerve block that my mum found an article on the internet stating never to inject into an RSD limb and my doctor didn't know that at the time!! We have now refused to have any more nerve blocks done on the limbs that have RSD and my doctor is also going to inform other doctors about what happened to me!!

I have spoken to many people who say that they have had a lot more pain after the nerve blocks but for most people, it subsides after a period of time thankfully. Some people have even reported that the pain gets worse before it gets better so hopefully that is what is happening in your case but everyone is different!! If the pain continues for a long period of time, I would definitely speak to your Doctor and see what he say's.

As for the medications, everyone is different so no one can really help you on that - it is your decision! For me, the pain meds didn't work at all and the side effects were often outweighing the benefits so after speaking to my Doctor, we made the decision to come off them. It gets really hard at times when I don't have anything to help take my pain away but I personally feel that the medications were making me a lot worse instead of better - I had a lot more fatigue and was tired, had headaches etc etc. IF the medications are working for you though and you aren't having any bad side-effects - you are probably best staying on them but again, it is ultimately your decision and your doctor can't really tell you what to do!!

You are extremely lucky that you were diagnosed so quickly - that gives you the best chance of being able to reach a full remission!! It took me nearly 5 months to get diagnosed and others have had to wait a LOT longer than I have done unfortunately as not many doctors know about RSD!!

If you need anything, please don't hesitate to ask - I am more than happy to help you if I can and I DO understand what you are going through and how scary it is dealing with RSD at times!!

Take care and i'm keeping you in my thoughts and please keep us updated when you can!!

Alison.