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Hello everyone! Well I just came across this forum on the net, and it has been a while since I have talked with anyone with a chronic pain condition. I am a 29 year old male, father of 3 children and I am happily married. I have been on Workers Compensation now since December 1st, 2004. I had my hand crushed in a 1" carbide steel cable for 45 minutes before it was cut off of my hand and forearm. Nothing was broken, however, I had some of the worse torque damage one has ever seen. My arm was placed into a half cast for nearly 2 months, and I was on Percacets for the pain. When my pain was not subsiding, my family doctor sent me to a specialist who happened to be a plastic surgeon as well he ran a hand clinic at their local hospital. At this point in time, I was experiancing very weird symptoms. My hand was turning blue all the time, swelling to 3 times the normal size, it was always cold and sweaty, my nails grew faster on that hand and my hair on my hand also grew at a much faster rate as well.

After my appointment with this doctor, he immediately sent me to a pain specialist to seek nerve blocks as he diagnosed me with an early onset of RSD/CRPS. And by the way, he threw my half cast in the garbage that day. He figures that was part of the problem as to why it developed so quickly. I then went to see the pain specialist where he proceeded to assess me. And he too concluded that I had CRPS. He then did a series of sympathetic nerve blocks in the neck. Each time, they didn't work. They tried a few other kinds of nerve blocks. Twice, they tried one where they apply a turnkey on your arm for 20 mins and inject the same medication into the affected limb. That one didn't work either. When I say didn't work, I mean for the length of time that it should have. I only had some relief for maybe 4 hours at the most with any of the blocks that I received. Once he figured out I was not that receptive to the 2 different blocks that he had performed, he wanted to try a more evassive percedure. I don't recall much of that one, as I was put out for it. However, the relief I received for that was also short lived. That was the last time I saw that doctor. He ran out of options and referred me to a specialist in a bigger city who dealt with a higher volume of CRPS/RSD patients.

By this time I was on several medications. I believe the number was something close to 15. I was taken off of the percacets, as I was up to 15 a day to just try and take the edge of my pain away, and even that wasn't helping. So I was put on the Oxy's. Oxycontin and Oxydcodone. I was on pretty high doses of the oxy for my pain relief. 150mg, twice a day, then I had my instant relief if i needed it. I was always concerned about taking the oxy's AKA Hillbilly Heroin, as I am a firefighter, and I have seen what this stuff can do to people. However, a specialist told me, that one way to tell if someone has a true and legit pain case is if they don't feel the euphoric reaction. I questioned this, but his reasoning behind this was because people who don't have chronic pain and take the same drugs, don't have the pain perceptors through out the body to attach themselves to the drug as it is being metabolized in our systems. We do however. For this reason, our pain perceptors are using the drug for what it's for, where the person with out them, the drug is just being metabolized and giving them the high. I have to say, I belive him. I have been on really high doses of narcotics since my injury and through all the pain clinics, and the only time I had felt any reaction is when I had a pump infusion of Ketamine. However, they told me before hand I would feel that way. But I guess with all that said, it can still be argued. There are lots of people out there that have low tolerance's to certain types of medications.

After I was seen by the second specialist, who was apparently the best in my province, he wanted me to come as a in patient to their pain clinic. This is a huge hospital, however the pain clinic is 4 beds and you are there for 6 weeks. There is a pain team that consists of 14 people that range from the pain specialist (the anestesiologist), physiotheripisy, occupational therapist, pharmacist, phycologist, and many many others. They all see you every day. They poke and prod you, change medications and treat every symptom right away. However, when I left, I was 50 times worse then I was when I first got there. When I was first diagnosed with the RSD, it was only in my hand, caused by the accident. After all the small surgical procedures and non-surgical procedures I endured there, the RSD had spread through out my whole arm, half of my chest, up my neck and my upper right side of my back. I also left there with about 10 more prescriptions. I was then on close to 22 prescriptions. But after 6 weeks of being out of town and away from all my friends and family, I was sure glad to get home. It was the hardest thing I ever had to endure. It was the scarriest time of my life. Each new procedure brought more pain. Each new drug, brought on new side effects. I had an epidural in my back for the whole 6 weeks. I had them poking in my arm pit and under my collar bone trying to find th right nerve that feeds my arm to hook up the pump to freeze it with a nerve agent.

Anyways. I never returned. He too ran out of options. Then at the start of 2007 I had a chance to go to another pain clinic, but this one, I was an out patient. I lived in a hotel for the week and went home on the weekends. I started having DYSTONIA attacks, where my hand would curl in to the point that I thought my wrist was going to break. It would stay that way for hours, sometimes 15-16 hours, and sometimes, they would be back to back. One attack would end, I would get a half hour and then another one would start. Because of these attacks, and becuase I was not sleeping, I could not finish the program. They too did not know what to do with me. I couldn't do any of the physical requirements of the program. Only the workshops and the group stuff that we did.

Well, there is so much more I could write right now, but I have probably bored most of you guys. I would love to talk with anyone else who also suffers from RSD/CRPS. Doesn't matter if you have had it for 30 years or you were just diagnosed with it yesterday. It is one of the worst chronic pain conditions every researched, and it would be great to have a few of us on here to talk with and to.

Talk Soon,

CTAEC!