Hi, Everyone,

My name is Bethanna and I am new here.

Last Monday I was diagnosed with CRPS - but I'm a little confused concerning the pain. I'm not sure if I've been diagnosed correctly . . . and now that I'm on the pain medication, there really isn't any way for me to tell for sure one way or the other.

The pain I felt before the doctor diagnosed me was pain that mimicked a broken ankle. It wasn't burning, it was almost impossible to walk on, and it ached. My ankle wasn't broken, one of the bones in my foot was, but it was healing by the time my ankle started to hurt. I do plan to talk to my doctor more . . . but everything I read describes a very different kind of pain.

I do have chronic pain in my hips, legs and back due to nerve damage and spinal fussion (L-4, L-5 and S-1) and sometimes it gets pretty bad, but it doesn't burn any longer. . .I think it's only burned twice like it did before my surgery since the surgery two years ago. Once was a few months ago, and it burned at me knee, but the burning went away with some significant stretching.

The Elavil I'm on has relieved all of the pain in my back, hips and legs, and most of the pain in my ankle. It aches every once in a while, but I've been up on it and have been doing my normal routine. Because of the diagnosis I make sure I get into the hot tup twice a day or soak it with epson salt, one, and I message it several times a day, and put it up often.

This is a pretty horrendous diagnosis . . .but there are symptoms that I just don't see. My nails and hair have always grown very fast, there is nothing abnormally fast about them now - not compared to what they've always been. My foot was pale compared to my other foot in the doctor's office, and it was colder than my other foot, but it's winter, and I had a sock over that foot and a sock and shoe over the other foot.

He did take x-rays of my foot and looked at them for a long time, and he picked out changes in the bones in my foot. I used to be an athlete - heavy duty - so stress fractures were the name of the game as a constant. I was always dealing with those things in my shoulders, feet, shins and hands.

I don't know. Part of me wonders about the pain. . . and the other part of me checks myself as possibly being in denial of such a hiddeous disease.

Are there different types of pain with this? Or am I right in wondering if this is the correct diagnosis?

Thanks!