For the past 18 years, November has been Complex Regional Pain Syndrome Awareness Month.

To most people the disease (CRPS), also known as Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy, is unknown. CRPS is a rare disease that affects the nervous system and about 200,000 people in the United States have it. CRPS can develop after an individual has suffered from a peripheral nerve injury. The pain starts in the affected area and in most cases usually spreads in the same limb, opposite limb, or to other areas of the body completely. According to the McGill pain scale CRPS ranks above childbirth and cancer as the most painful type of chronic pain ever. Most patients with CRPS describe it as constant burning sensation equivalent to being set on fire. There is no cure for this disease.

Since most people have never heard of CRPS, it has become difficult to diagnose and treat due to lack of awareness. There are two different types of CRPS. CRPS Type I occurs after a minor nerve injury has happened, such as scrapes, burns, and strains. CRPS Type II deals with major nerve injuries.

Typical symptoms for both types include a constant chronic burning sensation, inflammation, spasms, insomnia and emotional disturbance. It also isn’t unusual for patients to suffer from short-term memory loss, concentration problems, and allodynia, which is an extreme sensitivity to touch, sound, temperature, and vibration.

Depending on when a patient is diagnosed, they can fall under one of the four different stages. Stage 1 is within the first one to three months when a patient may feel the burning sensation and have sensitivity to touch. Stage 2 these symptoms worsen and patients begin to experience memory loss, depression, discoloration of limbs, stiffness, and muscle wasting. If diagnosed within the first two stages patients have a better chance of it being reversed or put into remission. At stage 3 the patient has had CRPS for at least three years and the pain is constant and can spread. In this stage the brain begins creating the pain signals to the body rather than the nerves in the original affected area causing nerve-blocking injections to no longer work. In stage 4 CRPS is resistant to most forms of treatment.

Even though there is no cure a wide variety of treatments have been developed in order to try to ease the pain. Every patient is different so some can find comfort with prescription painkillers while others need more extreme treatments. Patients sometimes take low doses of Ketamine, nerve block injections, or use spinal column stimulators that use electrical currents to send small pulses to the nerves creating the chronic pain.

To learn more about CRPS go to www.rsdhope.org