I crushed my hand in '98. I'm not sure it's ever been even close to right since. The treating nurse made a couple comments that suggested she suspected some sort of problem. When I said that it was probably a good thing that it wasn't broken she said that soft tissue injuries could be much more serious than broken bones.

At first the thing just hurt. It wasn't really severe but it occupied my consciousness when it hurt and the pain always came with a deep pessimism and sense of foreboding. It was tearing my guts up since that's where I experience stress but I didn't know it was my hand causing it. It was causing a few other minor problems which I didn't associate with the pain either but I didn't know. As time went on I learned that the pain was closely correlated with how much I used the hand. I had a fairly strenuous job but just worked one handed so as to reduce the pain. Of course I kept complaining of the pain but no one would tell me what the problem was.

I guess I actually started getting a partial remission after about three years and was able to get off the medications and was regaining some function. I was limited to about fifteen minutes use of the hand per day but after working one handed so long, fifteen minutes was a lot of use. It was still hell since I still had flares but these flares tended to be very mild compared to more current times. Then I reinjured myself in '03 and things went sharply downhill from there. The second injury was mild but it was enough.

The docs still have never really settled on a Dx but I think there's little doubt in most minds. Just about every single thing else has been ruled out. I really have all the symptoms except for me the pain seems to be secondary to all the other problems. The pain just utterly disappears frequently and sometimes I get the sensation that my hand feels so good that I couldn't hurt it with a sledge hammer. This has proven to be as good a time to leave it completely alone as when I get pseudoparalysis: Any activity at these points will most probably lead to a flare. I don't get the obvious physical changes though the knuckles are apparently swollen slightly and I do get a little of the chamelion effect on rare occasion. Pain comes and goes and oftimes comes with anxiety now rather tham pessimism. Sometimes I'll go months or years experiencing the pain and then the anxiety and other times the anxiety comes first. I greatly prefer the former since there seems a tendency for me to blame myself for the RSD if the anxiety comes first. Of course there's no real basis for this but it's a sort of reflex.

I know a few people here experience this condition similarly to me and I suppose I find this reassuring somehow.

I hope everyone is having as good (or better) a day as I am. It's the first warm day of spring here and it's busting out all over.