MissAlisha

On August 19, 1998, I sprained my left ankle playing volleyball in highschool. I was 15. A few days later on Sept. 1 1998, I was on crutches going to class when I slipped on a puddle in the hallway (it had been raining and the school’s roof was leaking). Since then I have hurt. First it started out as pain that was too bad for just a sprained ankle. When I fell I thought I had crushed every bone in that foot. Of course I had to land on the sprained ankle (3 times to be exact) to try and catch myself. Immediately my foot turned blue and purple, and so did my toe nails. I was wearing an air cast for the sprain, and I had to rip it off because it felt like it was crushing my foot. On Sept. 20, 1998, I was diagnosed with Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy. Don’t let the name fool you, it is not a disease that exists in your head. The doctors now refer to it as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome II. This is something you can get from a bee sting, cat scratch, or if a doctor nicks the sympathetic nerve during surgery. You can also get it from sprains and strains. I spent the entire month of October 1998, getting nerve blocks. I had 6 sympathetic blocks, 3 epiderals, and 1 sciatic block. It was not fun. At the time the blocks did not reduce my pain, they made it worse. But they did raise the temp. of my foot. My injured foot always stayed ice cold and was blue and purple mottled. I then started feeling the pain shooting up towards my knee, and I noticed that things didn’t feel the way they should to my hands and fingers. Soft things were painful to touch, some of my fingers were going numb. During this time my mother had been in contact with a neurologist, and she said that RSD could spread and that I need to be admitted to the hospital for aggressive physical therapy. (That is doctor speak for TORTURE) My left leg and both my hands were affected now, they hurt all the time and were hypersensetive. I spent 6 weeks in the hospital for therapy, I was put on a variety of meds. Methadone 85 mgs and morphine 220 mgs, for pain alone. But I still hurt. I could barely function, but I felt everything. Vibrations hurt, wind hurt, I found soft touches to be intolerable to the point where I would vomit. During the 6 weeks I was there, the nerve damage spread up my left leg, to both hands, up both arms, down my back, and down my right leg. By Thanksgiving of 1998, I was in full body pain (except for my chest and abdomen, and my ass, thank god).
So I have been spending the last 8 years battling this. Since then I have also been diagnosed with fibro. All of this from a slip and fall