Hello to all, I'm Dawn

I am very happy to have found this site. I have been recently been diagnosed with RSD, after being attacked by a dog at work and having to have rotator cuff surgery. My ortho initially diagnosed me with RSD and impingment, and the workers comp doc also confirmed the RSD. A little back ground, I am 47 years old and I have lived with left side paralysis since age 7 due to a severe stroke, and the shoulder injury was to my right shoulder. Due to this life has become a bit more interesting.

I do not believe I present all the symptoms that I have been reading about, and have tons of questions. Answers are few and far between...

What I'm finding to be most prominant as far as symptoms go are: lava constantly flowing down my arm to my finger tips, slight swelling (mostly in the shoulder), severe numbness and tingling under the lava (so it feels like there are two arms not just one), insomnia (2-4 hours of broken sleep per night, short naps throughout the day can increase this to maybe 5-6 hours), and I cannot think straight to save my life...

I despise the drugs I seem to need to decrease the pain, and I really try to limit what I take. I'm worried that this will not get better, and this will be as good as it gets. I've tried very hard most of my life not to feel sorry for myself, but I am sorry to say, with this added to what I've had to put up with for 40 years, it is almost more than can be handled!! I've only been dealing with this for about 6 months, and am ready for it to be done.

I find therapy to be useless. I get upset with the therapist because she does not believe RSD is the problem, and during therapy she will firmly grab my shoulder to correct the angle of it while I'm lifting weights to strengthen my arm, this about drops me. She is convinced that I'm just pinching the nerve because of bad position. I try very hard to deal with the fire this immediately causes and not scream bloody murder, becuse I know she does not believe. I'm not sure what I can do to convince her?? I had to beg with tears in my eyes to stop putting stim pads directly over the area because that was killing me. stim is torture but she will not stop using it. Anyone else have issues with Stim?

I hope I'm posting this in the right area, if not please let me know.

Any advice would be highly appreciated!!!

Thank you,
Dawn