CRPS and oral surgery
 

My daughter has suffered with CRPS in her whole body for about 7 years. She has undergone Calmare therapy, and, while still in pain - is doing MUCH better than in the past. However, she has to have her wisdom teeth out next week and we are scared to death of it causing a flare! Any pre- op ,perioperative, post-op advice??

Vitamin C pre and post op. I am recovered from RSD now, but still do anywhere from 2,000 - 6,000 mg daily. 1,000 mg tablets several times a day. So glad she's doing better!

When I had RSD, I took 600mg of NAC (N-Acetyle Cysteine) 3x daily for several months as part of my recovery regimen.

Both supplements are potent free radical scavengers and can be picked up at any health food store - Vitamin Shoppe, GNC, etc.

My daughter has CRPS in a leg and an arm and recently had her wisdom teeth out. I too, was nervous about a flare, and I won’t say that the process was easy for her, but the increase in pain that she experienced really seemd to be directly related to the surgery itself and not systemic. She was in significant pain for four or five days, but after that she returned to her baseline.
I agree with visioniosiv regarding the vitamin C. There have been multiple studies indicating a correlation between the use of vitamin C and a reduced the occurrence of complex regional pain syndrome. Although I’m pretty sure all of the studies had to do with the preventing CRPS in the first place, vitamin C is cheap and safe, so I don’t think there’s any good reason for your daughter not to use it (unless of course she has some other condition or take some medication that wouldn’t work well with vitamin C). If you go to this page: http://www.rsds.org/researchlibrary.html and search for vitamin C - you can see some of the studies.

In addition to taking vitamin C (which she takes daily) we asked that the surgery be done under sedation instead of being awake like most people. We also requested a prescription for a few days of narcotic painkillers, instead of using NSAIDs, which I understand is what is most commonly recommended after wisdom teeth removal. I’m quite nervous about any long-term use of narcotics for her, but I felt that aggressive pain relief for this short period of time was important.

I hope that your daughter has a similar outcome to mine. Good luck!