Djhasty

The whole concept do CRPS developing in stages (called "staging") is out of date. It worries me somewhat that your doctor has told you that you are in"stage 3". All of the modern texts and thinking on CRPS is that the myriad of different symptoms will develop in different people at different times and they don't follow a pattern which correlates in any way to the historically defined different stages. I raise this not to be smart but because it raises a question mark about how up-to-date and current your doctors knowledge actually is.

I can't recommend strongly enough that you do a bit of reading up from reputable sources like the RSDSA.org website and you will understand where I am coming from. Over the past few years there has been quite a bit more research and effort that has gone into CRPS and larger studies have taken place looking at the way in which the condition can progress over the short, medium and long term. This has increased understanding of the condition and is one reason why staging has been discredited. It's really important that your doctor is fully up to date with the latest thinking so that you can get the best care.

You also need to expect that you are going to have to be your own advocate. You will sooner or later discover that doctors' hearts sink when they have CRPS patients because they don't have a nice quick cure to offer that gets rid of us!! It's important to get rapidly familiar with the condition and the various treatment options. Places like this are great but its important to get the basics and refresh your knowledge periodically from reputable, medical sources. If you don't feel up to reading the research papers or medical journals then i think the next best place to look is RSDSA.org - they have recently expanded their resources library and it has a wealth of reliable information.

A properly informed patient is much harder to fob off or ignore and you are less likely to miss out on potentially helpful drugs or other treatments because you can be suggesting them to your doctor rather than waiting and hoping he will mention them - the worst thing you can do is assume your doctor actually knows best! You will also need to be able to tell when a doctor or other health professional doesn't actually know much about CRPS - many profess to be knowledgable but aren't. The more knowledge you have, the easier it is to spot and then get rid of these people because they will be no help to you and may actively make things worse.