Originally Posted by fmichael

Dear Rosie -

Yes, I get chest spasms as well. I've been worked up for them in a number of ways, including multiple agiograms and an endoscopy. Even though both were normal, the best guess of the gastrointerologist is that I'm having a form of esophogeal spasms that dosdn't show up on the endoscopy, only because I wasn't having them at the time. Alternatively, they could be arterial spasm in the heart that didn't show up on the angiogram for the same reason.

In any event, they are well controlled - under either hypothesis - by nitroglycerin tablets, which act to dilate just about anything. It's certainly worth a try. In your case, where your lips are going blue, I would suspect either arterial or perhaps broncheal spasms, but that's just a guess. Have you by any chance been seen up by either a cadiologist or a pulmonologist?

BTW speaking of nitrates, there is at least one recently reported study showing that nitrates designed to combate erectile dysfunction by dilating blood flow "down there" may actually have a beneficial effect on CRPS. See, http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread60772.html

much love as always,
Mike