This may sound strange, but does anyone else ever just sit back and think CRPS is fascinating? It is amazing to me the way I can have sensations that mimic so closely what I would feel from various external stimuli. For instance, I sometimes get these sudden pains that feel exactly like I have just been stabbed. Okay, I'm assuming a bit here because I have never actually been stabbed.

I can remember when I first developed CRPS if I would rub my hand against something I would actually look down at it because it felt so much like I had damaged it that I expected to see at least a scrape. But there would be nothing because in reality I had only grazed against something ever so lightly.

Sometimes I can't help but think....wow, that's pretty cool.

Yes is real amazing how can we even see what's going on inside our bodies ,feels like we are in an episode of csi and actually experience a 3d view of our body when we feel pain or cramps,body and brain are so amazing and mysterious ,rsd I'm sure make us more wiser for sure ,no one knows the body like we do.when I got my rsd,I still remember the awful sound of my right ankle breaking ,I heard and still can see and imagine me in a csi episode for sure,like a nightmare,I'm still had not wake up from it , Jesika
Ps. Kim

Very strange disease indeed. My wife who has RSD used to state people were torturing her, literally. In the early days I had no clue in what she was talking about. It was people who gently bumped into her, brushed up against her, everyday occurrences for most but her pain was so severe she really thought many folks were doing it on purpose.

YES! It really really is weird...

Strangely enough, I had exactly that conversation with a student today. She asked how the crips affected me, and I was explaining about the sympathetic system misfiring (I know it's more complex than that lol) and she was completely fascinated by how on earth it could happen. She asked why they couldn't treat it better, how was it caused, how long does it last... I said 'they just don't know. They don't really know very much about quite a few things, it turns out'

When I was researching it a lot in the early days of diagnosis, I was often in two minds about the darn thing - on one hand completely frustrated and being driven to distraction by the pain, and on the other being utterly fascinated by how your body can get it quite so wrong on so many levels.

It is very interesting. Sometimes it helps to remind myself of that. We really are special folk. Even if we would rather not be

Good luck today and tomorrow, fellow Cripsarians. Smile and know how amazing you are...and remember that diseases like ours are what pushes forward medical understanding of many conditions and body processes. I know there could be a lot more CRPS research going on, but there is some happening, and more in the pipeline, and other related conditions are being studied too. There's always hope.

Bram

LOL!! I get the drops of freezing cold water hitting and running down my leg. When I look or feel there is no water.

I can understand how you'd be facinated by such a weird condition.
Well, for me I'm not so facsinated or CSI episoded by it. For me, I know it's equally weird but I call it the the the voodoo people. I don't know if I even believe in voodoo literally (you'd think I'd look into it)
It just feels like at random tortourous things are done to my arm & hand most times taking me by surprise, except for the burning.

Man - yes RSD/CRPS is completely engrossingly fascinating. In an awful life-overriding type of way, but still fascinating nonetheless.

The stuff that happens makes doubters out of everyone - even family - and completely stumps the medical field.

The blessing and the curse is that we get to know our own bodies and our own minds excruciatingly better than most of the rest of the population. It is a forced window to the height and depth of soul. Who forced the window open? Is it us? Is it God? Is it random chance? Or has the window always been open and we just never noticed?

For me, what I ultimately learned from it is that randomness doesn't exist. It's an illusion. A very ironic, awful, beautiful illusion.

We can believe in everything, or nothing. Ironically it's the same thing either way. Two paths going up the same mountain.

But what do I know

I've never done "X" myself.

Doc

Allen, I get the same thing! Here's a funny story - recently I had a bottle of cold Coke in my hand , thought the cap was closed tightly. The bottle tilted . I felt cold liquid dripping on my leg. Ignored it because its something I often sense. Till my husband said " you're spilling Coke all down your leg!". Geez.

I have done that more then once!