Hi Artist,

Thanks for your note. Yes, I've noticed that ALL meds say they can cause blurred vision! Aren't WE lucky! But, actually, I'd been on the same meds for at least 1 or 2 years without blurred vision when I suddenly began to have the blurred & double vision. So....who knows....it's not "the end of my world."

The visit with the Neurologist left me confused about whether or not it went okay. He was about 75 yrs old or older, & his wife who was about the same age was his nurse. She was hobbeling around with some type of brace on one of her ankles. Therefore, it was obvious he didn't believe in stopping work at the usual retirement age.

So, does that mean he doesn't "believe" in stopping work even when all a person, who lives alone, can do is care for their needs, i.e., shop, cook, "clean" house, etc? And even that can bring on excrutiating pain?
Also, he didn't ask me ONE question about what I can do with my hands, NOR did he even look at my hands (which were both mottled blue most of the time I was there), much less exam them.

All he did was ask me how the accident occurred, then measured my forearms & upper arms, & then used his little "hammer" to test my reflexes in my hands & arms. Maybe Neurologists routinely don't do any other exam of the hands/arms. All doc's are "looking" for different things. Another thing, he did seem annoyed that I'd only had one EMG test years ago, and he said he may have me come back for another one, after he had time to go through my records.

So, I'm just going to "believe" it was an okay visit.

But, can anyone else with hand/arm RSD tell me their experience with Neurologists? I mean, what kind of exam do they do?

Artist, I don't know how anyone works with RSD! I usually can barely sleep at night due to the pain being worse. I think that may be my biggest fear about trying to return to work force. Is your pain worse at night? Can you sleep? The increase I'm taking of Lyrica right now is "knocking me out", but then it takes me, literally, hours of drinking caffeine to feel like I can even talk. It is after 2 p.m., & there's NO WAY I could drive right now. I havenit gotten up to my previous dose until today. Hope I adjust soon.

A couple of years ago I went through training to become a volunteer for a nation-wide program called, "Trauma Intervention Program". We were on-call 3 days a month for a 12 hour shift. I had to drop out! I became very depressed about ever being able to "show up" for a regular job after that.

Thanks again, Artist, for your note! Sorry for being so "verbose". It's the Vicodin, I think!

Have a great week!

Denise


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