Author: Dr. Painless

New Year Resolutions for CRPS Warriors

If you are reading this and you have CRPS I want to tell you that you are a warrior. Those who have CRPS know that every day is a struggle. To do simple tasks and maintaining a life without pain every day is challenging. Our mental health often suffers. I want you to know that I understand these challenges because I am walking in the same journey.

As I ring in the New Year, I want to make some resolutions for wellness. My goal is to adopt a healthier lifestyle by incorporating regular physical exercise. So I built a little gym in my garage complete with all the equipment that I will need. I also plan on improving my nutrition by adopting an anti-inflammatory diet. Ultimately, my resolution is to become a better version of myself.

I want to go back to work in 2025, but this time I want to make sure that I reduce my stress level. This is to ensure the disease doesn’t take over my life again.

As strange as it is, I feel blessed walking on this journey. I am resolved that CRPS is a part of my life but it doesn’t have to take over my life. What do you plan to do this year to improve yourself?

The Connection Between CRPS and Cognitive Fatigue

Every day, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) delivers a myriad of symptoms. They are never the same, but they are all too familiar. Like the feeling when CRPS is spreading to an unaffected area and the fear that causes. the constant feeling of pain throughout the body

I have been battling severe fatigue lately. The type that is so overwhelming it affects your memory. I mentioned to my doctor that I felt as if I might be experiencing dementia. I have been doing things that are very much not like me for example leaving the stove on. Leaving the water running from the backyard hose. My brain searching and struggling to find basic words. My doctor said that she believed that inflammation is the cause. That once we get the inflammation reduced I will feel much better.

The Irony of Life: Confronting Fear and Finding Hope with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome

Stupid silly myths say itchy hands/palms are a sign that money is about to rain down. They never considered that maybe, it’s just Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. This is a very little known disease that affects people in different ways.
I was always afraid to die in a fire, but now I live in a fiery death spiral every day. I find myself laughing at the irony of life. The idea that anything you are afraid of in this life, you will eventually have to face, amuses me.

I was diagnosed with CRPS in 2023. This was after two years of endless tests. It happened two days after my father died from vascular dementia. It was also 10 days before my beloved grandmother passed away from complications from COVID-19.

It’s safe to say that 2023 was a very complicated year for me. On the flip side, happy things were also happening. I got engaged to my best friend. I bought a house. I changed my job so I could work at home.

The more I learned about CRPS, the more frightened I became. I wondered how I would be as a partner and wife. I also wondered about being an employee and all the other roles I have to play. I need to meet the expectations of others. I always feel like I am failing everyone.

It seems the theme in 2024 is about acceptance. Learning to accept the grief, pain, doubt and fear that I have been carrying around so long that might be affecting my body in a negative way

How can I accept what is happening to me? How can I turn it around into a positive thing that will inspire people, and heal me?

Let Me Introduce Myself, I have CRPS

Hello, and welcome to my blog. I have Complex Regional Pain Syndrome and if you haven’t heard of CRPS well, you are not alone. It is a rare condition in which little is understood. CRPS affects 200,000 patients a year and is a rare neurological disease. CRPS is a painful progressive condition. It corresponds to a group of disorders characterized by a disproportionate spontaneous or stimulus-induced pain. This pain is accompanied by a variably mixed myriad of autonomic and motor disorder. Swelling and pain are also associated with CRPS.

I vaguely remember the phone call from a doctor at the VA Hospital who told me about the diagnosis. To get to the proper diagnosis, I went through a myriad of tests and for two and a half years these tests and medications would challenge my body and my mental health. To add a cherry on top of the sundae, I also have rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia.

I have other things in my life, including love and for that I feel so lucky.

This blog is meant to help myself find my way through this highly complex disease. I want to document my journey. I hope to share it with the world. This may help someone else that might be walking in the same journey. Let’s walk together.