I'm curious because I hear others here talk about the experience of pain jumping. I too have this happen - off and on.

In my case my rsd started in my left foot and fortunately for me my pain is still regionalized to my left leg despite having undergone a surgery to that my foot last year. The pain jumps for no specific reason along the left side of my body, my rsd side, mainly in my joints. Sometimes I experience a deep cold in the bone of my left knee and hip along with burning on my forearm and hand. It never lasts like the pain in my rsd foot does and there are no combining symptoms that would categorize this as RSD spread.

Does this mean that the rsd pain is spreading? When the pain shots from one area of the body to a whole new site it is very disconcerting even if it is not persistent. Personally I've learned that I need to be careful not to allow the fear of rsd spread rule me. A recent example of this fear was when earlier this week while having a lumbar sympathetic block the doctor who was standing in for my regular guy inadvertently inserted the needle for the sedation into my left hand. I never let anyone touch me with a needle on my left side, but because he was new to me I was totally distracted by the questions he was asking me. I didn't realize that he had set up the IV in my left hand until after the procedure was done and I woke up in the recovery room.

I had a slight panic attack when I realized what had happened, alluding to the nurse in a joking manner that I was about to start having psychosomatic symptoms if they didn't remove the needle right away. Everyone laughed and I left the hospital holding my hand...waiting to see if anything would happen. Nothing did. I'm perfectly fine. The big bad needle did not make my RSD spread.

I'm not suggesting that RSD spread is psychosomatic, please don't get me wrong. I know full well that many of you have fully documented cases of this disease spreading. I just always question what that means for those of us who don't have documented spread. As many will say here its important not to chalk up all symptoms of pain to RSD.

I'm just very curious about what it means for those of you who have total body rsd??? How is that pain manifested for you in other areas of your body from your original RSD site? Now that you have total body RSD are you able to find any releif, does the pain still jump or is it constant?

I have days when I feel my whole body shutting down from my RSD pain, my brain slows down and I feel completely exhausted and unable to function but I still only really have the pain in my left limb at the end of the day.

Despite having had RSD now for 7 years I'm still at odds with understanding what it all means. I'm not questioning anyone's integrity here just trying to seek more answers so I can understand what we are all going through better.

MsL