Dear listmates,

The reason why I am posting is because I want to help everyone here. I am an occupational therapist and have been a hand therapist for the past three years. I have worked with two cases of CRPS that were triggered by wrist fractures. Since I was able to identify the symptoms early on in therapy and alert their doctors, the outcomes were positive. It saddens me to think that all of you suffer with this problem over the long term.

I came across this board quite by accident through a Google search and saw SandyS's posting to pray for her daughter's recovery from CRPS. At that point, I realized that I should share the information that I have been gathering for the past three months in the hopes that it will help all of you in managing your pain.

I have recently become interested in a field called neurofeedback. In essence, neurofeedback holds up a mirror up to an individual's brainwaves and, through the use of various feedback such as audio or video controls, it allows them to control and actually change the way various parts of their brains operate. After several sessions, it can lead to actual structural changes in the brain, a concept called neuroplasticity. I point you to the latest evidence on Sciencedaily** I can't post links because I'm new here, but if you search Sciencedaily for the term neurofeedback you can read the following two articles:

1) First Direct Evidence of Neuroplastic Changes Following Brainwave Training
2) Mind Control Can Make You A Better Surgeon

With no exaggeration, neurofeedback is changing the lives of many people.

To give you an example, I recently called a woman who lives in California who had dystonia so bad that her eyelids were clamped closed due to muscle spasms. In addition, she couldn't talk higher than a whisper. Her condition was so severe that she spent $50,000 to have specific muscles in her eyes surgically removed just so she could open her eyelids to see. The next step was to operate and install a deep brain stimulation unit. In desperation, she found an acupuncturist who also was a specialist in neurofeedback.

He first tried acupuncture on her, and when that did not help, he then tried neurofeedback. Within three weeks she noticed improvement, and after a year she is 99% symptom free. Her doctor now wants to incorporate Neurofeedback training for his medical students. She is willing to talk to anyone who wants information—please email me and I will give you her email address.

To read her account of the ordeal, you can look up Carol L. Hogue on Google.

So far, there is not a great deal of formal research on the efficacy of Neurofeedback on CRPS, but there has been one study that was published in 2007:

Jensen, M. P., Grierson, C., Tracy-Smith, V., Bacigalupi, S. C., Othmer, S. (2007).* Neurofeedback treatment for pain associated with complex regional pain syndrome.* Journal of Neurotherapy, 11(1), 45-53.

I have a great deal of confidence that Neurofeedback in combination with Biofeedback will help people who suffer with CRPS. That being said, the only technique I would recommend you avoiding is the LENS technique, as that actually provides input into the brain, versus with standard Neurofeedback, your brainwaves are input to the computer, so it is completely non invasive.

Let me try to explain it: Imagine seeing your heart beat on the screen. Now imagine if your heart beat were on the screen represented as a bar graph. Each time your heart pumps, you see the bar go up and down on the screen. Now imagine that bar represents your brain, and that each time the bar goes up, you know that you are producing beneficial brainwave patterns. Imagine if you trained your brain to recognize beneficial patterns every week, and could then learn to produce these patterns without the use of a computer. Hopefully you are starting to get a good idea of what neurofeedback is.

In addition to Neurofeedback, I believe that everyone here should try something called Qi Gong. I know I am beginning to sound new age, but I assure you I am very scientific in my approach. I am very open minded to anything that will help my patients, and this certainly has.

I recently had a patient who was sent from her doctor after a fracture with “median nerve pain,” which I suspected to be CRPS. At the beginning of the session, she reported 8/10 burning pain and after only five minutes doing Qi Gong, she opened her eyes and told me her pain was completely gone. I was completely amazed, as was she.

The next week she returned frantic, saying that her pain had returned. I asked if she had been performing the exercises and she said yes. Despite her insistence, I stood her in a quiet corner and had her perform them again. Within minutes, her pain disappeared. She admitted at that point that she had not been doing the exercises, which completely floored me. After that session, she never missed performing the exercises.

I believe Qi Gong works because it immediately helps to calm the overactive sympathetic nervous system/limbic system, which is what I believe to be responsible for the pathogenesis of CRPS. Once you can learn to quiet your sympathetic nervous system, I believe the pain will quiet as well.

**

I hope that all of you will benefit from what I'm saying here. I wish you the best of luck in your recovery! If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

-Jonathan