I went to see 2 doctors, who are familiar with RSD, for what started as right arm pain that has progressed to the shoulder, neck and left arm. Neither think I have RSD. One said it is because RSD usually involves in extremity and skin changes, and my hands are all right.

From what I can understand, I first have with neuropathy on the right arm, which have progressed to frozen shoulder, to the left arm muscle pain, and then to osteoarthritis on neck. My neck X-ray shows extreme narrowing of one pair of neck disc.

My family doctor thinks my new left arm pain is due to the degenerative narrowing of my neck disc.

I'm full of questions at this moment , no doctor is able to explain all my symptoms.

- Is there a non-RSD illness that causes pain to spread to the other part of body?
- Does RSD always involve in extremity such as hand and feet?
- Does RSD always have skin changes?

I went to eHealthme.com to look at the symptoms of RSD patients. Many of them have partial seizures, which I seem to have from time to time. Many of them also have osteoarthritis too.

- Does RSD cause partial seizure?
- Does RSD cause osteoarthritis?

My RSD STARTED WITH A TENNIS ELBOW OPERATION 12 yrs ago. My Rt hand blew up to 3 times it's size &turned purple & shiny. I couldn't even stand to have air blow across it because of the pain! I had at leas a doz. nerve blocks but finally had to go downtown to Rush Hospital. & spend a week with a needle in my back to finally bring my hand under undseizer cinder control. It did, however spread up my arm - past my shoulder. I have tubes in both ears, have problems losing my speech & my eye doc said that he's never seen such a change in such a short time. I can't be fitted witted with glasses because I get too dizzy to go through the test! RSD has also gone down my Rt leg (my whole Rt side).
I also broke my Lt. wrist so my Lt hand is involved also. There is a lot of nerve pain &terrible coldness - I never get warm & never sweat! So I truly wait for summer (I live in In.) but have to rely on my fam. So I don't get sunstroke because I love the warmth & would stay in 100% all day if I could! I also sleep a lot & my brain misfires & I need to have about 12 Botox shots in the back of my neck every 91 days so i can walk correctly & see without too much double vision.
I can't say that I've ever had any seizures . I do have a tendency to fall a lot towards the Rt & the back. (Gets me into problematic situations.) LoL. Did break my neck like that once! Most Of the time my Prince of a husband catches or holds onto me before I go down. Yea! Best of luck to You my Friend, Judy Vollbrecht

Judy, I'm sorry you had to go through all these.

Thank you for your kind reply.

Hi Boston

Mine started in my left knee and spread throughout the leg within about 18 months. In the original site I had a LOT of visible skin CRPS symptoms like the swelling, rashes, red burning skin, cold purple blue skin, hair went weird, skin shiny and thin, etc. The second site (my left foot) also displays a lot of symptoms the same. In time these visible symptoms have lessened a little, but still come back with flares, and the pain changed to mainly a deeper inner bone pain, with the burning on top if you know what I mean.

Since then it has spread to my left arm and right foot. It is different in these sites, and from what I've read and been told, it's not uncommon for these secondary sites to experience the CRPS symptoms in a slightly different way. My left arm can get very cold, I get odd electric type pains in it, it is weaker and has some tremors, and I get those cold muscle sensitive type pains throughout, and into my shoulder - like someone has dipped that part of me into iced water. I can feel the edge of it now on the left side of my neck and around my shoulder quite clearly. It's a very definite line. I don't get much of the burning red rash, it's much more a cold sensitivity.

Hope this helps a little. I've read a lot about it and you can definitely have it present differently in a new area. It doesn't mean it's not CRPS. You need to list the symptoms you are getting in the old and then the new area, and look at them honestly and ask yourself 'could this new thing be CRPS? Could it be anything else?'. We all over react to new pains because the CRPS affects our brains and tells us to. Our pain system is hyped up and it makes it difficult to tell what's really going on... But for me the pain is the main symptom that tells me it's CRPS, it has that relentless, changeable, odd and senseless quality to it we all recognise

Take care of yourself and I hope you are feeling a little better today.

Bram.

So sorry to hear of your battles.
Skin changes are just one of the symptoms. The actual cause this monster is the disruption of the Sympathic Nerves signals to the brain. This can manifest itself in various ways.
As far as I know from the info I receive from my neurologist the most accurate test is the EMG of the area to see the reaction of our brain to certain signals.
I get seizures too and I take Cymbalta for them which helps somewhat.
I'm not trying to sound like a know it all. I'm just chiming in...

I have had RSD for 12 yrs. I couldn't even have a shower without screaming from the pain in my ankle & leg. I had the discoloring, the crockadile skin, swelling, joint stiffness & couldn't touch my foot to the ground till I got my sympathetic nervous system rerouted. They said I would have permanent issues but it was manageable & it comes & goes. I didn't know it could cause any internal organ issues or seizures. I started having chronic migraines 6 yrs ago & 4 yrs ago got daily seizures that lasted about 20 min. I have seen boatloads of neurologists & i have assked could it be RSD even though I never heard of that as a side effect I asked anyhow & all said no. I now have seizures about once a wk & i get involuntary muscle spasms. These come even if I don't feel the pain. Does that happen to you or only when you are in pain. I couldn't use cymbalta or any of the types of meds as they caused me to have 10 or more seizures a day along with a boatload of other issues, once stopped went back to my normal seizure pattern. Great to hear others with RSd have seizures so I know I am not crazy like they try to tell me.

Hello, sorry about all your going thru ,it's a horrible disease that people that don't know about rsd could never possible understand what we go thru everyday.i have full body rsd mostly internal that took over my life .when I first started with rsd I had major stomache problems that left me bed riddint.i ended up having a seizure during Christmas while opening a gift in front of my whole family,went to the er and everything worked out ok.i haven't had one since,that was 5 years ago.rsd can cause seizures.best of luck,any questions you wNt answered you can ask me or text me6095762399.i have so many different symptoms that change all the time.any questions don't hesitate ,Danny