I am wondering if there is any connection between stress at the time of the precipitating injury and the development of RSD/CPRS. My thinking is that if you are already in a heightened stress state, this might play a part in the body's overreaction to the injury.

I have had a few surgeries over the years, including a previous one on my now CRPS limb, with no ill effect. However, at the time of the surgery which triggered the CRPS, I was going through an extremely stressful and difficult time in my life.

Any thoughts?


I shall now put away my imaginary medical degree.

[tkayewade]

I was doing something physically stressful. I was running in an extremely physical race. I tore a peroneal tendon, and continued running. It never healed correctly. No one could ever really tell if my rsd came before or after my surgery. It hurt terribly pretty much from the get go. Mine has spRead rapidly since the onset of the original diagnosis also. My doctor believes mine is becoming systemic.

[Nanc]

Mine started in my face 22 years ago. I bit a rock that was in my beans at a Mexican restaurant. I had root canals, etc, and ended up losing my three back bottom teeth and got implants. This happened the first weekend I moved to a new city, alone, to start a new job. You could say I was a little stressed!

They say that stress aggravates RSD/CRPS, and I agree, but as far as there being a connection with the development...??? Who knows??

[kbarrett]

I was at a point of high stress at work when I developed mine, so there might be.

Having said that, the cause of the stress has not gone and I go back to work on Tuesday, with much reduced symptoms. What will be interesting to see is what state it'll be in on Tuesday morning!

[AZ-Di]

Well, Kim at least you know more about CRPS than most in the medical community so maybe there's something to your "medical" degree
I think stress can affect many medical conditions so you're not off on thinking that.
I was stressed knowing I would have to arrange to be off work for a few weeks.(now it looks like forever)
I'm pretty sure the surgery after the injury caused mine b/c I had no symptoms before.
I was advised to ice and elevate my arm as much as possible after surgery,
so I now knowthat my CRPS was definately made worse by the ice.

[catra121]

I remember being extremely annoyed when I got my initial injury that caused the RSD because of some nonsense at work (which was WHAT caused my injury). I don't know that I would say it was stressful as things didn't really reach the stressful point until after my injury...but I was definitely feeling some strong negative emotions at the time because of the nonsense that was going on.

[Vrae]

Originally Posted by KimA

I am wondering if there is any connection between stress at the time of the precipitating injury and the development of RSD/CPRS.

Any thoughts?

I had just lost my mother to breast cancer and I was going through a divorce. I was buying and selling houses and moving my mother's things from TX to Colo. Did I mention I also had three kids in tow ages 2-15? Yep, there was plenty of stress at the time I had surgery. And I have often wondered if that was the sole reason I woke up from surgery with this horrible condition.

My belief is that we all have our own pesonal pain threshold and exceeding that is what causes the RSD. Anestetic didn't work for second carpal tunnel, each cut the pain got worse until the 4th when my body jerked so hard only my head and heels were touching the op table and my right hand broke against the lead clamp. They missed it was broken for 5 moths, wouldn't have made a difference full blown RSD within hours

[Djhasty]

Well, I wouldn't say that I was under anymore stress than normal every day stress. There is a grey area as to when my CRPS started. i didn't just wake up with it one day. it came on gradually. I had a great job. The family was heavy into kid activities such as kids do these days. Sports, music concerts, high school. Looking back it doesn't seem too stressful; I think at the time it was probably much more stressful than I can remember.

Later, looking back, after I already had some of the symptoms of CRPS (undiagnosed at the time) my husband's job was abruptly moved to Omaha. I had to quit the job I loved and move to a place I knew nothing about. One daughter went off to grad school and the other moved to Germany. Oh yeah, there was a wedding in there too during that time. My husband and I both suffered from empty nest syndrome. Now that is a lot of stress. Could be that that is why my symptoms progressed.

Several years later, my new Urologist (hematura and dysfunction) here in Omaha looked at my feet and said, "You know Deb. this is not normal. You need to see an internist." The Internist said the same thing. She sent me to a Neurologist. It took 4 Neurologists and loads of test to finally arrive at my diagnosis of Dysyonia, then CRPS 4 years later.

During the time I was being seen by all the Doctors for my curly feet and inability to pee, I was looking for a job, starting a new job, changing jobs again, starting another new job ...

Wow! Yep. I guess i could say there was a lot of stress going on in my life.

Sorry for the book.