Ditto here, Terri.

And Mike, I love your cerebral and methodical approach. Keep it up!

Many thanks for the phone calls, messages, pm's and emails. Please forgive me for my late replies. I have devoted every second of my days to beating the spread to my left ankle and leg.

I am amazed that as of this morning the spread appears to be totally gone.

Here is what I did. My PM doc had nothing more than blocks to offer me. I decided against that for the following reasons. In the past, he had not even recommended blood draws and insisted on a virtual colonoscopy for fear of igniting a spread. Additionally, no pain management doctor I have seen has ever had a patient go into remission with blocks, despite many with early intervention, and despite the conventional wisdom that early blocks can promote remission. My pain management doctor has had patients that have experienced spreads after blocks. I personally know of three patients who have experienced serious spreads and have learned of additional examples through forums. Even if I had a block that helped short term I did not want a short term solution.

Left to my own devices I doubled my Low Dose Naltrexone and took anti inflams to deal with the inflammation issues. I immediately began an aggressive desensitization program every fifteen minutes all day long. Basically, what ever my leg hated I gave it a quadruple dose plus more. I refused to give into my body screaming for oxycodone although admittedly that was almost not successful. I went back to 50 mg of Trazadone for sleep issues and night sweats.

Instead of pain meds I used mirror therapy at least every 90 minutes (sometimes once an hour)to knock the pain down enough to move, bear weight and do desensitization activities, (very miserable) and used a TENS unit on my leg.

I went back to my treatment schedule of tDCS twice a day for twenty minutes each and I am still treating.

The only color change that remains in my leg is the bruising from the original fall. The extreme burning, alodynia, sensitivity to air and clothing is gone. The accompanying exacerbation of the addition miserable symptoms (extreme sensitivity to light, loud noises, cold rapid heart beat, sweating all over joint pain, etc. had lessened.)

Basically everything I did dealt with preventing change in brain plasticity and cortical reorganization. The most important thing is that I did nothing invasive.

Only time will tell if I have dodged this bullet for good.

Hope this is helpful and useful information to someone!

Wow...I applaud you for pushing yourself to go through all that...it must have been really hard. As one who has experienced spread following a block, I completely understand your decision to not go through that. The other stuff may be more painful in the short term but it appears that you have done all the right things and that you succeeded in your fight against the RSD spreading into your leg. Just goes to show that there is rarely just one thing that helps...but rather it is about taking all those treatments that you know and using them in combination to see results. Thank you for sharing all this...spread to new areas is always very scary and it is encouraging to hear that you CAN do something about.

For me...I will start my twice daily treatments with tDCS today. Fingers crossed that it is successful. I know there will probably be some trial and error involved in finding the right electrode placement and everything but I am very optimistic. Thanks again to everyone for their posts and suggestions.

Dear Ballerina,

This is wonderful news!!!!

Joydee

All day today I have been touching my ankle, to see if the pain is really gone. To my amazement it is totally gone. Three days ago I was crying rubbing raw rice laced baby lotion on my ankle, followed by drawing yarn over my calf that felt like knives. My leg felt as though it had been set afire. Even the breath of my cat was unbearable.

Although extremely fatigued I am so very grateful that the spread, and or fresh CRPS has been thwarted.

When my husband asked me how I wanted to celebrate I decided I would dig into a cheesecake with a serving spoon. YUM! (Tomorrow I will be back on track with my CRPS diet)

Wishing cheesecake celebrations to all!

If anything is worth a cheesecake celebration...THIS is...I am so happy for you!

Hello everyone, I'm from the UK

My sister has had CRPS for a year now from banging her foot against something hard by accident. I don't know the specifics of her CRPS and I don't know if it's spread either, she's been keeping quietly to herself about the condition and only recently I've learned how horrific this condition actually is. I don't know if it's spread anywhere recently (she seems to be in ache/pain moreso lately)

I want to help her get better so I suggested to her she ask her doctor about tDCS and TENS machines (and perhaps low dose ketamine infusions athough I don't know specifics about these and I'm not sure she can actually afford all of that). Maybe just tDCS and TENS will be good enough... I hope :/ Maybe even mirror therapy? I've read that it has caused spreads and such so I'm not sure if I want her to risk it. Now knowing that spreads are a fresh case, I'd prefer if she got her tDCS and TENS first I suppose

One thing I'm definitely curious about is if TENS units (sorry, slightly off topic) have ever caused spreads or whatnot although generally they seem like they're safe?

Are there good online stores that you guys who have had success used that ship tDCS and TENS units internationally (to UK ;p)? I would love to know, I just want to help her and get her life and happiness back

I use a TENS unit with much success and I have never heard of any issues with them causing spread. BUT...they do not work for everyone and for some people using a TENS unit can actually be more painful (maybe cause a fare but not spread...at least from what I have heard). That tends to be how things go with CRPS...but considering how non invasive it is and the possibility of success I definitey think it is worth a shot for everyone...much as I feel tDCS should be tried by everyone before doing anything more invasive.

I don't know what companies might ship to the UK or if there are any UK based medica supply stores where you might get a TDCS unit. It might help in your search to know that the unit that is used for tDCS treatments is an Iontophoresis Delivery Unit...and you will have to buy different lead wires and electrodes to convert it for tDCS treatments.

Thanks for the response. I'll try checking out more stores first, she's going to get a Bier's block which had worked for her before so I'm going to urge her to use tDCS and TENS as early as possible too