Hello,

Has anyone experienced Complex Regional Pain Syndrome after surgery? If so, how was it treated?

It's been just a little over 2 months since my surgery. In a previous posting I talked about feeling pain at night. That pain has become worse and I am now feeling it during the day as well. Any recovery I've made so far is slowly reversing. My family doctor thinks I might be experiencing initial CRPS and gave me a prescription called Gabapentin to help treat the pain as well as pain killers. I took one Gabapentin this morning and was sick with upset stomach and dizziness after taking it. Don't think I'll be taking anymore. Gabapentin is known to help ease the pain of CRPS but also has lots of side effects. I have a call into my surgeon but it's the weekend now and don't expect to here back from him until Monday. I intend on making a trip to see him as soon as possible.

In the mean time I thought I'd see if anyone on this board has experienced CRPS and what they did for treatment.

Thanks for your help,

Leona

After my first DC release - L little finger - I developed carpal tunnel, treated with cortizone injection and fairly good results. That was 20 years ago and have had no problems and no disease return. Second DC release 10 years ago - R little finger - also developed carpal tunnel which progressed to CRPS or as it was called then RSD. Received cortizone again with no results. The surgeon wrote me off, but the OT kept working with me. The end result was that the pain kept me from splinting and exercising as I was told and I have about a 20 degree contracture in that finger. My recommendation is find a pain medication that will allow you to complete hand therapy and make sure you trust your doctor and therapist. If not find a new one(s).

Leonas, please get opinions from one or more doctors who actually do NA about whether it can be successful for you. You can email pictures of your hand and they can tell a lot by that and you can ask them questions by email. I'm assuming that you live in the US. What area of the country do you live? Look in the menu on the left side of this page for docs who do NA.

I had open hand surgery early July 2009 and still have problems. The treatment I was given was strong pain killers which seemed to disagree with me so I had to revert to Paracetamol and a course of steroids namely Prednisolone.

I have now finished the tablets and I am not now experiencing any pain except when doing the prescribed exercises which involve forcibly pressing the fingures towards the palm, sometimes placing the hand in warm to hot paraffin wax before doing the exercises (this seems to give soothing relief).

Hope this is helpful to you.