Hi Liz sorry you're here with CRPS, but welcome to a really helpful and supportive community. It certainly is a confusing thing to get your head around, but you WILL learn to deal with it and live your life. Try not to panic, it can be managed pretty successfully, but yes you are going to struggle as well. Be prepared to become even more strong, stubborn, resourceful and determined!

In two days time I will have had CRPS for two years after a knee operation the was supposed to 'fix' my knee pain. Amazing how your life can change so quickly... Mine has spread, and I worry about it spreading further, I think the Vit C and Mag advice is good, and there is some medical research to support it. In an effort to state the bleedin' obvious don't use ice at all, and keep using that arm as much as the pain allows. Try to exercise and keep your body in as good a shape as you can, as weakness makes you more vulnerable to injury and illness - mine has gone a bit flabby and weak over that 2 years, and I'm having to fight hard now to get at least a bit of tone back!

There is a balance to strike with it. You need to learn about this condition so that you can inform the doctors and other medics you see (very few know about it), and you will experiment with meds and treatments to find a combination that helps you day to day. You have to be your own advocate with this, you can't just accept what any doctor tells you about it - too many are not working from a position of specific knowledge, and you will end up knowing more about this than they do. You might need to change doctors, fight to find a good physio, stop a nurse from using a BP cuff or taking a blood sample from your bad arm... It's certainly not an easy ride.

BUT you do learn, you do cope and most of us find that things settle down to a state where we can live our life pretty well. You can overdo the research and the reading and being angry about it. The balance is to keep educated with new thinking, keep in contact with supportive knowledgeable people (check!), but live your life as best you can without concentrating on it every minute of every day. You can enjoy life despite what the CRPS throws at you...most of the time There are bad patches, and days when the fight is too hard, but you just keep on going.

Prepare for the worst, hope for the best and when you're learning about it, steer clear of any obviously biased websites, remember that the idea of stages has been proven and accepted as rubbish (some docs still believe it) - and don't look at the pictures on some sites (they can happen, but are the extremes, and you don't need them in your head).

Good luck with everything, and I hope your spread stops where it is!

Bram.