[catra121]

I am so very sorry for all that you have gone through and what you are dealing with. RSD is no easy thing and to have it for 20 years...congrats to you for making it through this far. We all know what a struggle it is daily to deal with the toll RSD can take on us.

Can I ask...what sort of treatments have you had and what meds are you on? Other than pain...what are the symptoms that are troubling you? Last year I experienced a worsening and spread of my RSD from my left ankle to my entire upper body and it was accompanied by a lot of other crazy symptoms like loss of balance, ability to concentrate, dizziness, nausea, hallucinations, etc...it was awful and it was scary. There are different things that we tried and eventually I found some relief for those symptoms...though we are still working on getting the pain levels down. The meds themselves were part of the problem at one point so it has been a slow process of getting things back to a point where I can function much more normally...though by no means am I 100%.

I can only imagine what sort of toll this would take after so many years...I know how bad it has been just these past 3 years since I got RSD. Neurotalk is a great place and I have gotten such great support and advice from the people on here. RSD is a strange thing and everyone is affected differently and what works for one person doesn't necessarily work for another...but at least I have found out about a lot of options that I never would have known otherwise and have been able to find things through trial and error that have been helpful to me.

I'm going to be starting tDCS treatments soon and some people have found miraculous success with it. I'm by no means an expert (especially since I haven't even started my own treatments yet) but I would encourage anyone to give it a try because people who found no success with any other treatment for their RSD have gotten a lot of relief. There is a thread on here about it and I would recommend reading it. There is always hope that even if the next things you try doesn't work that they will come out with a new treatment option that WILL work. 20 years is a long time to live with this and I am amazed by your strength and courage to live with this every day and to keep fighting.