From what you posted here, my best guess (and of course I am not a doctor and have no specific knowledge of the details of your case) is that the CRPS resulted from the knee strain. I know that with the amount of pain that we suffer it feels like it should be more than that...that something bigger must be causing this pain...but it is usually not the case. The logical part of our brains says that with pain this severe there should be an injury or damage to match...but often there isn't. It's bad enough knowing that I got this from a sprained ankle...something many people get in their lives that usually heals up just fine...but then I think about the people who may have done something as small as slam their finger in a drawer, stubbed their toe, had blood drawn for a simple test and I think of how much worse they must feel about how this could happen. It makes me feel a little better if I think of it more as my sympathetic nervous system was damaged when I was hurt.

With all the normal test results, it is no wonder that many of us feel we are going completely insane because the pain is so severe and yet the doctors can find nothing wrong so we get bounced around until someone diagnoses RSD and then it's like this great sense of relief that we are not insane because the pain is real (which we already know but sometimes the doctors can make you question your sanity).

I also want to assure you that it is not uncommon for the pain of RSD to progress over time after the initial injury. I was able to walk on my ankle and even though there was pain, it wasn't completely debilitating at first. But instead of the pain getting better...it just kept getting worse and worse. Physical therapy didn't help, vicadin didn't help, tylenol didn't help...it just kept getting worse and the docs just kept ignoring my complaints of intense pain and even the fact that my leg was getting ICE cold. I was put in a boot to immobilize and initially it seemed like that helped...but then the pain got even worse than before. This is classic CRPS...if you don't use it, you lose it. You can get it back usually with extensive PT...but the longer you allow yourself to immobilize the limb the more pain you will be in and the more pain you are in the more you want to immobilize to avoid further pain. It is a vicious cycle and based on your inability to move your leg much I would say that you are pretty far into that cycle. You need to realize that even though your pain is EXTREMELY severe and you can't move you leg much...this COULD be just the CRPS and there could be no other underlying problem. Not saying this is the case...but you should be aware that it very likely could be and don't convince yourself that just because the pain is so bad that there has to be something else going on.

I don't want to discourage you from trying out a treatment that you feel is worth the risk to you...just trying to give you things to think about. I know when I am thinking about different treatment options my brain is running a mile a minute and sometimes it helps to just think things through out loud (or type them out here as the case may be). Sometimes I will even just grab a pen and paper and write down all my thoughts so that I can get them in some sense of order...even just making a list of the pros and cons can be helpful.