Hey All:

Since my RSD spread to my left foot and leg I have been getting sever flare-ups everyday that feel like "battery acid" under my skin. It happens when I take a shower in the morning. The water has to be luke warm, but to my legs it feel like fire. Every drop of water is a "Nightmare". When I get out it continues to burn, I cry, meds don't work, yada yada yada.

So, then I either cover my legs in Lidoderm Patches (I am 6 feet tall so you can imagine how many patches. It's expensive!) or I use topical cream and wait about an hour to an hour and a half for the flare-up to calm dowm.

It happens everyday. Does anyone else have this problem? Or, similar? I can't do anything but cry and get through it.

Thanks,
Heather

My pain isn't as bad as yours when I get out of the shower. The water hitting my knee and the water flowing over it set me off. I figured out that if I want to do anything, I cannot take a shower right before it. I need to take one much earlier and wait for the flare-up to pass/subside before I do anything.

Oh man I thought I was the only one that had troubles with showers. The water is pretty painful for me, but the kicker is when I get out of the shower and the cool air hits me. That sends the burn, and pain through the roof

It is sooo bad that what once was a daily looked forward to activity, is now down to every 3 days, and sometimes 4, with me really not wanting to go. My family then said take a bath. Well the cool air is then COOOOOOLD air, and hurts worse than after a shower.

Another thing that can really make me move! Is fans The cool moving air is anything but feel good to me. It is more like sticking my leg into a furnace. Weird stuff this RSD

Hello All: I know what you mean about dreading to take a shower. I have RSD in my left foot/leg and now my left hand/arm is sensitive as well.

I turn on an electric heater for about a half hour before getting in the shower and keep it on while showering. This helps to prevent being blasted by cold air when you get out. Also, when done showering, I open the door but stay behind the closed part for about a minute to allow the different air temps to blend. I do not like the feel of a towel on my RSD skin so I let it air dry and do not open the bathroom door until I am completely dressed.

Another thing I do is while washing my foot, I breathe like a woman in labor. For some reason this seems to help a bit.

I miss getting into a warm tub with a good book.

Regards, Lil

Yikes! It just seems like my RSD has gotten worse since I found out I was pregnant. Maybe that's because of the I stopped some of my meds, but the only one that would have really had an affect would have been the Topomax.

I just got out of the shower right now and it burns so bad. Like the worst sunburn of my life. I am afraid of it moving any farther up. It's already to miy mid thigh. I hate this RSD!

Thanks for sharing your stories with me. I know that I am not alone now!

That is a great idea. I usually turn the house heater on, but a space heater sounds more economical...

Thanks,
~H~

I do not have this problem all the time but yes, sometimes the shower is almost unbearable. I guess, when I do it I just repeat to myself over and over that the nerves will calm and it will be more comfortable. I use the shower quite often to desensitize the area also. If I personally had to pick between a rub down desensitization and the water doing it for me, the water is a much greater relaxor.

I hope these thoughts make sense.

Gentle Hugs,

Rain

I have had RSD for 4 years and never had this happen, but I had a cryoprop(spelling) in 12/06 and the incision from that surgery has a reaction to water. SO weird. After 4 years and may surgeries and procedures I have never experienced this types of water/burning. Nothing surprises me anymore.

I feel as good as can be expected. Keep positive. NO STRESS...

ANN

Me too.
I managed to get a shower stool through Occ Therapist. That helps a bit as I don't have to stand with water running down my affected leg but if I inadvertently reach for anything and a few drips of water fall from my wrist to my affected knee OMG.

The shower stool lets me sort of sit/stand with my leg out of the wetting and splashing zones of the shower but the breeze of a shower!!!oh dear.
I often end my very brief encounters with moving water in tears of pain.
Any temperature is agony for me too.

We also live in a semi-rural area on mains and as I sit here trying to write this I can here my wife screaming in response to the massive changes in water flow we get - from nothing to a blast like a water cannon. You can imagine the joy of showers for a CRPS affected body.
I can't physically get into the bath.

Then there is the breeze from the towel when drying the rest of the body setting of more allodynia. Even the breeze created by the water passing me on its way down to the drain is a killer.

I like to be clean just like the rest of you guys but gosh this condition makes even that hellish.

I'm not trying one-up-manship but people other than the RSD afflicted just don't get that such a simple thing is mind-blowing and a major task.

I would love to bathe and get the pleasure from it I used too once again as I'm sure you all would.

I not good in groups but I genuinely mean the following:

Showers are not fun! At all! I can empathise with you... Water pressure always seems too hard, the temperature is rough (keep adjusting it)... I end up stepping in and out of the water so much. The only RSD free spot that I kind of like having the water spray on is the front of my trunk, but then again sometimes I hurt there from the radiating pain from my back!

Drying off is about just as hard! Ugh... not something I look foward to, but I have to do it- and want to smell clean!

I try to do it as fast as I can (not very fast!), and when my pain is at it's lowest- usually early afternoon.

Oh, yes- and it always takes me time to "recover" from the shower! Sometimes quite a while- knocks my breath out and always drives the pain up.

Baths might be easier than showers, if you can get down in the bath (I cannot get down in the bath, so I just stand in the shower holding onto the safety rail).

Gentle hugs , and I wanted to say welcome, Heather!

Congrats on your pregnancy- I hope all will go well.