Quote:
Originally Posted by fmichael
Hi. I was in needless agony for at least three years because a crazy psychiatrist at my (long former) pain clinic - alone among all the doctors there in thinking my pain to be primarily physiolgical as a result of the tendon tears in both feet/ankles while working out at the gym, which brought on CRPS in the first place - placed me in orthotics which such heavy correction thatI would have rolled right out of my shoes: but for the fact the these "Ankles Foot Orthotics" (AFOs) were strapped to my shins which a piece of hard plastic, that in turn was connected to the foot piece by a hinge that allowed for only up and down motion. I literally could not move my feet from side to side.
Now, I can't speak for anyone else, but in coming on 10 years of living with this, in my experience immobilization is one of the surest ways for triggering a flair. By way of example, in the first few years, when the pain was most severe, it often took hours to go to sleep at night, no matter how much oxycodone I had taken. But to kill the "bone crunching" pain inside both feet, all I had to do was keep rocking them back and forth. Of course the moment I fell asleep, my feet stopped moving and the pain returned.
Being terribly clever, it only took me three years to internatilze the message: motion was good, "guarding" was bad. At which point, I unilaterally dropped the AFOs and my average daily pain level fell from about an 8.5 to maybe 6.0!
Long story short: if there is anything about how you use the orthotic that limits the range of motion your foot once had, and it could even be the sort of shoe you now have to wear with it, that (IMHO) is more likely the cause of the increased pain than the orthotic itself.
Mike
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Thanks, Mike. I did have some nasty orthotics over the years that did limit my movement, but these new ones were designed to be more flexible and fit in the same shoes. It just seems like my body couldn't handle being "properly" aligned and now I'm in a big time flare again as well as dealing with my back. The chiropractor who ordered the orthotics feels bad. She is familiar with RSD, but just didn't expect this reaction. She is helping my back and has helped me move better as far as my hip/pelvis bone spur problem. For now I'm not wearing any orthotics and can't stand anything on my feet by late in the day. It's unreal how many of us can look back and see what shouldn't have been done to someone with RSD. If I hadn't been put in a cast over 25 years ago when I had terrible swelling of my left ankle with no known cause, supposedly tendonitis, that didn't get better from meds and rest etc., i might not be living with this RSD challenge. At least more doctors have heard of it and believe patients now than back then. Hopefully in the future it will be recognized and have a treatment that works. Sorry if this got long winded, my feet are burning way over a 10 and I can tell it's 1 of those hard to sleep nights... guess I needed to vent some.
Nana