[mjl1261]

Hi everyone.

I am writing on behalf of my husband who was diagnosed with CRPS in Oct/2009 after surgery to repair ulnar and median nerves in his hand.

He had a stellate ganglion block and two brachial plexus blocks, none of which helped except while the anesthetic was in effect. He was on gabapentin, 3600 mg/day, up until New Years when he weaned himself off.

His CRPS symptoms were as follows: 1) extreme pain at the end of one of his surgical scars (he could literally point to it with a pencil) but nowhere else, 2) coloration and temperature changes in his fingers which were also extremely shiny, 3) excessive hair and nail growth on his injured hand, 4) lots of swelling in his hand, fingers and knuckles.

At our last visit to the ortho, I pointed out that the coloration changes have disappeared, the temperature changes are fairly minor, there is very little shininess (is that a word?), he is now virtually pain-free, the swelling is all basically gone except in his knuckles which I fear he will have forever, and the excessive hair and nail growth appear to be going away. I thought these were all good signs but the ortho kind of winced and indicated he felt my husband had moved on to the next stage of CRPS!

We go BACK to the ortho again in a couple of weeks but I wanted to ask the people who REALLY know CRPS (you guys), what exactly does remission look like? Because in my eyes and more importantly, my husbands, he is improving, not getting worse! I posted to this site several months ago and got so much encouraging advice that I wanted to come back to the experts. His symptoms are not completely gone, but if you guys could compare to the way he was at Thanksgiving, it's night and day.

So what do you guys think? Might the ortho be right? We have been fairly happy with him thus far, and he gets big points for diagnosing my husband immediately, but I sure am hoping he's wrong this time.

Thanks in advance, everyone, even if you agree with the ortho. I am hopeful but also a realist!