CRPS - What to expect? How to cope / quell my worries?

Posted by archaicsilence @archaicsilence, Apr 8, 2025

Hello! I am a 15 year old who recently (late February) got diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. I’ve been in intense, nonstop pain in my foot since August-September and absolutely nothing has worked for me. They put me through millions of tests and doctors (obviously exaggerating, but it was a lot) and only in nearly March did they find out it was CRPS (because everything else said nothing, so process of elimination). I’ve honestly been really upset with the diagnosis. I’ve been told CRPS is not curable, that it’s something you;re stuck with your whole life and has no cure but can be treated to be “manageable”. What is considered manageable? I’m just kind of scared in general because I don’t know what to expect, I haven’t had anything done since my diagnosis and everything else I’ve tried has failed (Physical Therapy, medication for both pain and nerves (though they wont put me on proper pain killers), and pretty much everything I can do for myself at home). I have an appointment with UNC in May but I don’t even know if they’re treating me there or what and I’m just generally kind of scared. To other people with CRPS, what should I prepare for? Am I gonna be in pain for the rest of my life? Am I gonna be able to be a normal kid again and ditch my cane or be able to be active? How do I cope with this?? Anything helps. I’m sorry if any of this doesn’t make sense or is stupid.

Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Chronic Pain Support Group.

Profile picture for nezir99 @nezir99

@archaicsilence hey pal, I’ve been suffering from a foot injury for over 2 years and it nearly turned into CRPS but we started treating that aspect of it just in time, before it got to that stage.
My PT, who knows a lot about the science of pain and pain processing, mentioned to me today actually when I saw her that CRPS isn’t irreversible. It’s just really hard to treat. Also, upon googling a little, it says most cases resolve eventually. 15 is also very young, so I’d say have hope—it’ll probably be easier for you to heal than other older people—and even more importantly, find someone who knows how to treat this stuff. The sooner the better I think. It’s basically nervous system hypersensitivity and dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system, from my understanding. My PT is Ingrid Anderson in Atlanta. Maybe give her a call and ask what to do. She’s very good/reputable from what I’ve heard. See if she’ll do an online appmnt with you just to tell her what’s happening and have her point you in the right direction

Jump to this post

@nezir99 hey! I appreciate the advice 🙂 its been a while since I made this post so there's been a lot of progress since then. The CRPS spread all the way up to my hip and was making a lot of things so much harder on me, but I went to Scrambler Therapy last month and did two weeks worth of treatment and it basically got me back down to almost pain free with just some in my ankle. I think the 2 years worth of strain and walking bad and whatever really messed up my knee though because it's been giving me a lot of problems since I was treated, but I recently got in with a new Pain Clinic (since insurance cut my last one off. three cheers for that :/) and I go up for the first time next month to hopefully get some help getting me back to a more "normal" state or like, at the very least able to do things i wasnt able to do before 🙂 theyre gonna check my knee out and everything too, so im a lot more hopeful now than i was last year. still a bit nervous but the scrambler therapy brought down my pain so much that its got me feeling up. 😀

REPLY

Conentional medicine does not have an effective treatment for neuropathy, but alternative medicine does. Here's a really good article on innovative treatments for neuropathy, which includes CRPS: https://www.paintreatmentdirectory.com/posts/innovative-treatments-for-neuropathy

REPLY
Please sign in or register to post a reply.