Hi Everyone!
I was diagnosed with RSD 8 years ago, in my first week of high school. I'm one of those fun cases where there was no precipitating injury, just a sudden onset of symptoms - horrible pain, loss of circulation, etc. That first attack lasted three days - my lower leg looked like a cadaver and I couldn't walk. Luckily, my case is not one in which that is always the case, but it made diagnosis difficult. Sometimes, I would go to a doctor and they would see the decreased/nonexistent circulation, the stiffness, the cold, etc. Sometimes, I'd have pain but no other symptoms.

To make an overly long story short, in the last 8 years I've seen dozens of doctors and tried everything from PT and hydrotherapy to sympathectomy. Most were simply ineffective. The sympathectomy was a nightmare - the poor, scared resident doing the procedure had no idea what he was supposed to be doing, and then afterwards, I had post-sympathetic pain for a year. My best success has been with Neurontin for pain control - it works about 50% of the time. I use narcotics only when absolutely necessary - I don't want to become dependent on any of my medications, and all of this started when I was still a teenager. I have this terror that I'll become too accustomed to my meds and they'll no longer be effective when I get older.

I've had a consistent progression of circulatory symptoms, with accompanying muscle and bone loss, permanent damage to the veins of my leg, etc. that I'm sure you've all heard of/seen/experienced before. I've been really lucky - although my pain and other symptoms have progressed and radiated from the original site (right knee), I've only very recently begun to experience any symptoms elsewhere, which is probably partly my fault. I refuse to use crutches or a wheelchair (I'm often stubborn to the point of idiocy), which means that I limp a lot. This has meant that my left knee has had to bear a great deal more strain, and now the deterioration is progressing rapidly, with the onset of RSD-like symptoms.

Anyway, without too much whining (I hope), that's my story. I am so glad to finally be talking to people who actually know what I'm talking about!