Hello!

I've seen a few threads on this board asking questions about graded motor imagery programs and I just thought I'd take a few minutes to share some of the amazing results that my girlfriend has had with this program. A little background: she has had CRPS for about 3 years but had a year-long remission due in part to several high dose ketamine infusions (Dr. K in Florida) and diet changes. Last spring, she ran a 5k and re-inflamed her CRPS. She got another ketamine infusion with Dr. K, but it didn't stick longer than a month or two. Throughout this time I was doing a lot of research (I'm a graduate student and have access to all the medical journals). A treatment that looked promising and was not too expensive was GMI, so we bought the GMI handbook, hand laterality apps for her smartphone, and a portable mirror box. She had previously tried using a mirror box, but it only seemed to inflame her CRPS even more (she was only doing it once or twice a day). She really didn't see much benefit from the GMI program during the first phase of the GMI program (hand laterality), but I insisted she keep trying. We actually had her doing it for several months (she would have setbacks in her laterality accuracy during flares and I really wanted to make sure we had her accuracy and speed up before we moved to the next stages). She started seeing benefits when she moved to imagined movements, on the order of more days with about a 5/10 pain level. The program really took off for us when she moved on to the mirror box phase (after about 2-3 weeks of imagined movements). After having gone through the proper phases, the mirror box worked 110% better than it had previously worked for her. She immediately started feeling more consistently better (to the order of pretty much every day a 5/10 pain level.) By the time she had been doing the mirror box for two weeks she actually reached 0 (that's right 0) pain. Since then, she has had a few periods of some minor transitory flares (nothing too bad relatively... up to about a 5/10) but has been mostly pain free (consecutively for stretches of 3-7 days)!

She is also taking the following supplements: NAC, Vitamin C, CoQ10, Curcumin, Fish Oil, Magnesium, ALA, Vitamin E, Grape Seed Extract, (and maybe a few more I'm forgetting). In addition she takes Tizanidine and Nortriptyline at nighttime to help sleep. She still does her mirror box frequently as well. She also started a low does (10mg) of Alendronate just today... we'll see if it helps some of the results we've achieved sink in.

I know that treatment success is variable and what works for some doesn't work for others, but I just wanted to share our great experience with GMI and encourage anyone interested to look at the "Body in Mind" website (http://www.bodyinmind.org/ look at the "articles" tab) for access to the research on GMI (and ongoing research on other chronic pain related topics). I'm happy to answer any questions about our experience with the program as well. Additionally, she has recently started a blog and has written about her experiences with GMI. If your interested, it can be found here: http://www.dishinguphope.com/2013/01...rsonal-review/

hello cjai - wow - congrats!!
So is this all the crps related meds she is on ... no others for pain?
In addition she takes Tizanidine and Nortriptyline at nighttime to help sleep. She also started a low does (10mg) of Alendronate ??

Hi sallysue!

Yep, those were all she was one when I wrote this... She has since weaned off tizanidine and was taking only 1 nortryptaline until last night when she officially weaned off all meds! The Alendronate was a trial run when we suggested bisphosphonates, the doctor suggested we try this for 10 days instead of the infusions, which I wanted. They seemed to help some but at this point she is doing so well that she doesn't need them. If symptoms flare again I'll push for the high dose pamidronate infusion very quickly to hopefully stop it in its tracks. Other than that we're focusing on prevention.

It is important to note too that she is on a pretty heavy anti-inflammatory diet. She went off gluten for a while and is back on now but only a bit. She has green smoothies everyday and avoids processed foods/sugars/red meat.

I'm happy to answer any other questions. I can't speak highly enough of what this GMI program has done for her and I encourage everyone to look into it.

Certainly wonderful news cja1! Keep us posted on how all goes. Best wishes, Sallysue