Originally Posted by CanadianPain

Hi Jim.
Sorry to hear of your wife and your battle. I know it can be very difficult, especially to accept, in the beginning anyhow. Has she had RSD for a long time? I imagine your wife had RSD in one area which spead? The ability for RSD to spread is one of my greatest concerns.

My husband has had sympathetic nerve blocks (MANY), spinal therapy, acupuncture and the doctors also tried removing the fluid from his leg but it refilled as quickly as it drained. He seems to have trouble recalling all the different treatments but I know there were lots. Unfortunately I could not attend any treatments as they occured in a city 5 hours away from where we live. Workers Comp had him in the city for weeks on many seperate occasions, going through tests and procedures. Every treatment done to him caused more pain without any benefit. Eventually, treatment stopped and now he only sees the specialists in the city once every couple of years and his GP every two months. While his leg/foot is extremely swollen, he has not had any blood clots (knock on wood) and the infections have been infrequent fortunately. The current infection is impacting the big toe only which looks a little more unsightly than before but the rest of his foot/leg have looked like this since surgery, right after the initial accident. Take care!

Originally Posted by Jimking

CanadianPain, my wife's battle with RSD started almost 10 years ago. She broke her wrist. Within a few years it spread to her other arm and both feet and calves, a little in the neck too. Her feet and calves did swell and turn red and purple but not nearly the degree of your husband's. Her doctor prescribe a strong steroid that she took for 2 weeks in which it worked very well. Recently she had another bout of swelling after a year or so and repeated the steroid with success. She also received ketamine treatments with no success because I believe she had the disease too long with no treatment at all (at least 4 years) with little to no benefit. I wish there was something I could recommend to help with your husband's swelling other than asking him if he had ever taken a steroid for the swelling before. Thanks for the response and I pray for good luck to visit your home soon especially your husband!

Originally Posted by SandyRI

Ketamine has been demonstrated to work even if you've had RSD for 10 years or more. It's success rate is higher in patients when started earlier, but it still has a good chance of working even when used in long term CRPS patients. I would encourage you to try it if you have the opportunity.

Good luck, Sandy

Originally Posted by CanadianPain

My husband has had sympathetic nerve blocks (MANY), spinal therapy, acupuncture and the doctors also tried removing the fluid from his leg but it refilled as quickly as it drained. He seems to have trouble recalling all the different treatments but I know there were lots. Unfortunately I could not attend any treatments as they occured in a city 5 hours away from where we live. Workers Comp had him in the city for weeks on many seperate occasions, going through tests and procedures. Every treatment done to him caused more pain without any benefit. Eventually, treatment stopped and now he only sees the specialists in the city once every couple of years and his GP every two months. While his leg/foot is extremely swollen, he has not had any blood clots (knock on wood) and the infections have been infrequent fortunately. The current infection is impacting the big toe only which looks a little more unsightly than before but the rest of his foot/leg have looked like this since surgery, right after the initial accident. Take care!

Originally Posted by calracci

Hi CanadianPain, so sorry for what you're going thru. I've been very close to that myself so can really empathize. Fortunately, treatment brought my swelling down. I had the spinal nerve blocks,4, a massage therapy called 'milking' that really helped, and one of the big problems was Lyrica also whicch was causing swelling. I switched to Topomax instead with allmost instant results. I was lucky enouth to find the one in a million drs and pts that actually knew about rsd and the special pt really helped also. Now I'm in VA with a new spread to my hip, almost out of meds and in desperate need of a new pm dr and can't find one. At any rate, I hope some of that is stuff you can try.