Introduction

I thought that just in case anyone ever reads these posts, they might want to know a bit more about me. I am 23 years old, have a bachelors degree in psychology from NNU, work as a PSR (now called cbr) worker, and am lost in what I want to do next. 

Now for how the pain began. I was a competetive roller skater before I got RSD, and I have a bronze medal in the JO qualifying events which allowed me to go to regionals. It was a pretty big deal for me. I probably would have gone far if the pain hadn't become too much for me. My initial injury was to my right heel. I had something called severs disease which basically just means that my growth plate in my right heel became separated. It's apparently pretty common in kids who are involved in sports that strain the feet before their growth plate in their heel fuses. I really don't know when that injury turned into RSD. I know the pain was and still is excruciating, and my leg was very skinny and weak and purple. My mom was always bringing that up to my doctors. She'd be concerned but they would tell her it was no big deal. Maybe if they had paid more attention to my moms complaints I could have been diagnosed sooner. Right now I seem to have a very general version of RSD. My pain is very widespread, I am extremely sensitive throughout my body, not just my legs anymore. But I no longer have the discoloration, and I haven't had it since surgery, PT, and meds got me up out of the wheelchair. So I don't know. Some people get better with therapy, others don't. Some people say that RSD is localized, others tell me it can spread. So I don't know if my RSD has just spread throughout my body since it took so long to diagnose, or if it is something else. I don't know if it is possible to have both, but I actually have a lot of the symptoms of Fibromyalgia and responded to all the pressure points in the exam they do. Horrible pain every day, I never have any energy, and yet at night I can't sleep. I get a lot of headaches. I have gastroparesis and severe acid and bile refllux. I seem to get sick all the time.  I wish I could say I was on a huge list of meds cuz then maybe I would be improving more, but I haven't had insurance for a few years and so I really don't have much help. I have a TENS unit which I use alot and it seems to help some. I take hot baths which helps. Other than that it's just over the counter stuff and hydrocodone when the pain is at it's worse. I can stand about 15 minutes before the pain starts to get overwhelming and I need something to hold on to...and I can walk short distances before the pain is too bad. My legs and feet turn in at a weird angle and my ankles are weird, I have custom supports in my shoes that help me to hold my ankles at a proper angle. We think alot of these problems stem from my RSD as they developed after that. My RSD and FM symptoms were a major problem all through school. Now that I am working and thinking about getting my masters one thing that's holding me back is how hard it is to get through a day as it is. I'm not sure if I can take more stress/work. It will be interesting trying to keep the health related blog and my other seperate. So there could be some repeat. But I realized I started a blog several years ago about the RSD because awareness is so important but let it kind of die. I will try to be better about it...because just knowing someone else out there knows how you are feeling can make a world of difference.