Rose's Story: "My hand hurts when the wind blows"
As a firefighter for the past 15 years, Rose W. was no withering violet. "I take care of myself; I do what needs to be done!" she says. But in late summer, she had a freak accident that seemed like nothing at the time. While pulling the starter cord on a lawnmower, she hit the back of her hand on a pole behind her. There was very little visible injury and nothing present on multiple X-rays, but yet the pain persisted and even got worse. Eventually the swelling and burning pain were so bad that " I couldn't stand the wind blowing on my hand, I couldn't stand the sheets touching my hand at nighttime, and I couldn't open a bottle without pliers"
For months, physicians couldn't find anything wrong with her. Her family doctor sent her to an orthopedic surgeon, who then sent her to a hand surgeon, who then sent her to a neurologist, who finally ordered a test suggestive of the real problem. Her doctor at Riverside Spine was her fifth doctor for this problem, and confirmed the diagnosis of RSD (now known as CRPS or complex regional pain syndrome).
"My doctor spent a lot of time explaining this very mysterious problem, and gave me options for therapy. He explained that the sooner we start with therapy, the better a chance I have at complete recovery". Rose's therapy consisted of adjustments to her medications specially selected for nerve pain, local anesthetic blocks of the sympathetic nerve supply to the arm, and physical therapy. In the beginning, her therapy was very difficult, but now "The injections have helped so much, and the physical therapy is working wonders" says Rose. After just a few injections, Rose' pain had dropped from 10/10 down to 1/10.
"Complex Regional Pain syndrome is usually not diagnosed until a patient gets to a provider who can recognize it from experience, and offer specialized therapy directed at the sympathetic nervous system" reports Dr. Kornick of Riverside Spine. "The sooner we start treatment, the better", as the disease tends to get worse with time. Also, "not much is known about the underlying causes of the disease: Why does a seemingly innocent injury with minimal damage cause such a sustained and severe pain response?" A broken wrist, a stubbed toe, a deep injury involving damage to a nerve that causes pain way more severe and long lasting than what we would expect; those are the hallmarks of CRPS.
Now, after just two months of therapy at Riverside Spine, the constant burning pain in Rose's right hand is almost completely gone, and she continues to do physical therapy and take low doses of nerve pain medications with good results. "I'm so grateful for the doctors and staff at Riverside Spine, who were finally able to help me" Rose reports. "With their treatments, now I can open bottles, pump gas and pick stuff up". And, her hand doesn't hurt every time the wind blows!