Sorry for my late reply, I just saw your question now. I'll try my best to explain the "peridural" anesthesia.

The day following my surgery in Germany this past August, I was given a 7 day continuous "peridural" anesthesia with Bupivacaine and an opiate.

Doctors don't seem to know what a peridural is here in North America. In Germany it is considered a "gold standard" treatment for newly diagnosed RSD patients with great success.

It is similar to an epidural except that the catheter is slightly bent and so instead of it paralysing me completely from the waist down, this bent catheter gives direct access to the sympathetic nerves of just my left leg. It should not paralyze that leg completely and the drs slowly increase the medication until maximum pain relief is reached. There is the risk of losing control of bladder and bowel functions so they carefully increased the dosage until I was pain free but still able to stand. I was not allowed to get out of bed on my own (even though I could walk).

The first attempt to insert the catheter actually got my right leg (opps), completely paralyzed it with the lowest dosage so they had to reposition the catheter. It was interesting to see that the same amount of medication that paralyzed my normal right side barely even affected my left rsd side. They had to increase the medication by more than double of that given at first to my right side to reach the maximum benefits of pain relief.

I am doing very well now, was it the peridural, the ongoing Lidocaine infusions I get or the fact that the offending screws were finally removed from my foot? I will never really know that answer completely.

What I do know is that while I am 10 times better than before the surgery I do still have RSD, albeit mildly. Sadly it was told to me that because I have had the RSD for so long it was very unlikely that I could be cured with the paridural treatment. The reason we did it was to mitigate the risk of rsd spread from a surgery on the rsd affected limb and I think that was definitely accomplished.

Fortunately it is a treatment that can help those newly diagnosed and or those of us who have to go under the knife again.

MsL