Hi my Fellow Friends at Neurotalk,
I have been a visitor to this site for the past few months and so far have just read stories about others struggle to maintain lives with RSD. While I've made a few posts I have not commented much...feeling too new to do anything but get to know the site. Now I feel confident in sharing my story.

In August of 2005 I woke up to pain in my feet. Pain that had no reason to be there. Realizing the pain wasn't going away I began popping ibuprofen to try to reduce it. Not only didn't it go away it got worse! Great! I had to go back to school the next week to prepare for the new year as an 8th gr. Algebra teacher and wondered why this cropped up now when it had the whole summer to come and go. Yikes! By the time I left the cabin to prepare for the new year I could hardly walk for the pain in my feet. I couldn't even hop!

So I started the new year in pain that only increased with each day. I saw my general physician who thought I should see a foot doc. So off to the podiatrist I went. By this time it was almost time for the school year to begin and I was getting desperate. The podiatrist thought I had tarsel tunnel syndrome of the feet/ankles and I would need to have surgery to relieve the pain. Well, having never been a fan of surgery I asked my general physician for a second opinion at Mayo Clinic in Roch, MN.

I spent the next four months going from one specialist to another. Test after test, going from crutches at the beginning of school to a wheelchair by the beginning of November. Nothing made sense and I was going out of my mind with the raw, ragged, stabbing, bed of nails pain that I now had all of the time. I refused any medication until these special doctors at the Mayo Clinic could find a diagnosis. Needing my job and insurance I had to continue to work. it wasn't until I saw one doctor who suggested I focused on getting better and signed a note that said I would be unable to return to work for a few weeks. That was Dec 23, 2011. At the time I didn't know it, but I would not return to work that school year or for the next six either.

After that I finally was able to see the neurologist and the foot and ankle specialist (they were so booked that there was no way I could get in before that time). The neurologist said, "It is not neurologically based" and that I should begin walking again w/o the wheelchair. Ohhh, every footstep was agony. Finally I got in to see that foot and ankle specialist. I rejected the idea to just put a shot into my feet to make them feel better and challenged the doctor to look closer. He thought a few moments and then ordered the test that has changed my life. He ordered a nuclear bone scan of my feet. After the scan I met with the doctor. He came in, showed me the scan results on the computer, and while tracking a point on my foot he explained about the reasons why my foot looked like cottage cheese. Then all at once that point disappeared. The point was not a hole in my bone but a nerve misfiring. The doctor turned to me and said that I had Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy. His fellow explained the disease to me and said I would be forwarded to the pain specialist for help with this very misunderstood disease. One that is not curable but only managed. My heart fell 10 stories. After that it was years of pain blocks, physical therapy, pain medications, pain clinics, pool therapy and a bunch of tests which included several EMG's. The pain began to migrate. First from the foot to the ankle. Then from the ankle to the knee, and then up to my hips and lastly to my arm/neck and hands.

This June (2011) I found myself confined to my recliner at our lake cabin with my feet up as high as I could get them, my knee up on a pillow and each of my hands on pillows as well. After considering the pain that spiked so high I couldn't rate it I finally came to the conclusion it was time to follow-up with the doctor about a spinal cord stimulator. From there I had the trial implant on June 20. It went so wonderful I cried for an entire day--tears of joy.

Today, almost exactly 6 years to the date I had a Boston Scientific Precision spinal cord stimulator placed into my spine with the battery inserted in my right butt cheek. I'm sitting in my recliner now without pain in my lower half of my body for the first time since that fatal August day. For the next 6 months I will continue to take the Lyrica, Cymbalta, Trazadone, Celebrex and Rinitadine and then at that time I will try to tapper off my medications as much as the pain will allow.

The spinal cord stimulator trial and surgery were not as painful as I thought. However, I realized the trauma it inflicted on my back after the trial was taken out to be considerable. The doctor recommended a minimum of 3 weeks before implanting the final stim. Boy, did he get that right! The two incisions on my back are about 3-1/2 to 4 inches long each--one on the lower part of my spine and the other down about 2 inches and to the right about 4 inches. They should heal like a fine line. No showering for 4 days (Yikes) and no submersing for 4 to 6 weeks.

So, there it is. My story. It only took up 8 inches of typing but a lifetime's worth of agonizing pain. Now I'm onto part 2 of my story; one which has yet to be played out. Thank you for reading about me. Let me know if I can help in any way. ~Teresa Marie