Quote:
Originally Posted by 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!
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Hi mjl, I was diagnosed with RSD in 1986 treated here in Florida for 1 year but the nerve blocks, that I was getting here, just weren't holding and I probably had 50 blocks in that year alone. My Dr. down here got me an appointment with Dr. Schwartzman in Philly He and his group of other Dr.'s and interns and residents evaluated me for about 6 hours. They then admitted me to rule out any underlying problems, there were none. He then started me on different kinds of blocks using different kinds of medicine. I had at least 1 set of blocks every day for 2 weeks. I thought I was cured, I finally could walk with no pain move my arms, no pain, and no more back pain, I was amazed.I told Dr. Schwartzman You're a genius When can I go home? He said a few more sets of blocks and you can go. I had the blocks and I was skipping around the hospital "cured". When I was getting ready to le ave the hospital, Dr. Schwartzman said to me , I am not trying to rain on your parade, But you have to be realistic, This RSD does what it wants to so don't be surprised if it decides to flare up again, remember there is no cure there are only treatments. Well I refused to even think that way because I felt great. For 1 month I did everything I felt I had been missing while I had flared up RSD. Then the RSD started bothering me again, but I kept going as much as I could until this crap stopped me. I started nerve blocks again, here. They would work for a while and then back to the same situation. I met a bunch of people while I was in Philly, both trips. They said they new people that had had RSD for quite a while and with treatments they said that Dr. Schwartzman said that the RSD had burned out. And as of a couple os years it was still burned out. I think you should enjoy these great days and we know our bodies and if you feel good why question it. I still would talk to the Dr. as to the way he left you feeling confused. No matter what the Dr. does tell you when you see him, you know how you feel I'm happy for you and maybe yours did burn out as I think you said it was diagnosed early. Best to you and yours, Wendy
03-30-2010, 10:56 AM
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