Hi Sophie,

I would certainly bring up the MN but you may be accurate that your PM may not be too concerned about it. Mine wasn't especially interested in my pain contributors since he wouldn't really be treating them. He was more concerned about treating the pain and leaving the other kinds of treatment to other specialists. It is worth mentioning though as your doctor may have other ideas or info for you. Intuitively it seems that treating a pain contributor would make a difference but also remember that plenty of people have MN but don't have CRPS.

I hope the sympathetic block helps. If it doesn't then it may mean your pain isn't sympathetically maintained. The evidence on blocks is mixed. They aren't a sure bet but they do work for some people.

I agree with Shay on the mindfulness approach. It does help and reducing stress though challenging is possible. Remind yourself that you are going to be okay. I tended to catastrophize in the beginning which wasn't helpful and wasn't reflective of mine or the majority of outcomes.

Thank you again Littlepaw. I appreciate your input into all of this! Also, thank you again for the encouraging words. I know This is my 2nd go around with crps but i still am adjusting to finding out that it has returned!

Good luck with your appointment today. Keep hanging on and believing that things will improve. If you can, please keep us updated.

Shay

Thank you Shay
I will!!!! Thank you again for all your kind and supportive words

Well I got my first lumbar sympathetic nerve block this past Wednesday. I don't think I noticed much improvement with my pain. I have another one coming up this Wednesday for the right side.
If I don't notice any improvements with the 2nd block, I will have to decide if I should try another round just in the event that the blocks may work or just not get anymore blocks.

Hi Sophie,

Maybe your pain isn't sympathetically maintained. Your doctor may have some insight on this and what that indicates for trying any more of them. Did you have any response to the block at all? A sympathetic block will warm the limb even in a completely healthy person...

Littlepaw. I'm not sure if my limb was warm after the block. When this doctor treated me years ago, he would come to the recovery room and he would feel my knees and talk to me. On the day of my block, I noticed that he had a lot of patients scheduled for procedures and I didn't see him after the block.
I may have had a very slight decrease in pain in my left foot, however it only lasted a day or two. I did notice today that I tolerated shoes better today, however I have been rubbing DSMO cream on my feet every few hours.
Could my pain be sympathetically independent already?? Symptoms started mid September. As much as feet burn, I can feel pain coming from the neuromas too! (I see my PM in a 1.5 weeks, so I will bring this up as well.) Well it will be interesting to see how this next block goes. Thanks littlepaw

Sophie,

Sorry if I alarmed you. I should've clarified. CRPS is not always sympathetically maintained which is part of why the name was changed to CRPS. I didn't mean that you'd advanced to sympathetically independent pain, just that it may have a different mechanism.

No Littlepaw. It's not you it's me...everything is alarming me right now! WIth the pain in the bottom of both feet, my activities of daily living have been greatly effected...so I am trying to learn and read up on CRPS as much as I can!!! Thanks again have a nice weekend

I may be overthinking this and definitely stressing out about this especially since I had to leave work! And I need to stop this until I get more answers or pain relief
But I was instructed to ice and I applied ice at least 4x a day so maybe this somehow pushed it from sympathetically maintained pain to sympathetically independent pain? Something else I should mention at my next PM visit.

I may possibly be he most anxious person to ever post on this message board: