A friend with MS has been telling us about this fairly obscure symptom she has, and she ran across this potential cause recently:

"Most cases of Erythromelalgia (EM) are idiopathic (cause unknown). Sometimes EM is secondary to other medical conditions including autoimmune, neurologic or blood disorders. Lupus, polycythemia vera and multiple sclerosis are examples."

"Symptoms
... symptoms may include hands or feet that are very red to purple in color, are perhaps swollen, hot to the touch, and have burning pain.

Location
... symptoms may appear in the face, ears, knees or other parts of the body.... Some notice a continual burning pain while others are troubled with "flare-ups" or episodes lasting from minutes to days in length.

Triggers
... flare-ups are provoked by heat and exercise, and symptoms are relieved by cooling and elevating the affected extremities. Some TEA members have found that foods, spices like MSG, beverages (particularly alcohol) and some drugs can make symptoms worse."

http://www.erythromelalgia.org/tea/s...ythromelalgia?

Cherie

Specific foods do that to me. Hence, I do not eat them anymore.

This is really valuable information! Thanks for posting it!

-Vic

she might want to look into RSD.

Yeah I saw the title and thought RSD, too.

Sounds like classic RSD to me as well.

Carolyn

Thanks for the RSD info. I've never heard of that, but passed on the message to her.

Cherie

cherie,

the rsd forum here has tons of info. the stickies would be a great place for her to start.

Thank you Cherie for this article!! As you might remember, I've had that problem of swelling, sore, hot/cold feet for years. The pain is always there, along with everywhere else -- probably due to the fibromyalgia. Nothing ever seems to touch that pain but elevating my legs does help the swelling somewhat.

I'll check the RSD board too. Who knows -- I might be "lucky" and have three diseases going on at the same time!!!!