What is CRPS Mayo Clinic?
Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is a form of chronic pain that usually affects an arm or a leg. CRPS typically develops after an injury, a surgery, a stroke or a heart attack. The pain is out of proportion to the severity of the initial injury.
Is CRPS the most painful disease?
A rare neurologic disorder that plagues some 1,000 Long Islanders, CRPS is ranked among the most painful of all medical problems and has been nicknamed the ‘suicide disease’ because there is no cure and limited effective treatments.
How painful is CRPS?
Pain is the main symptom of complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). It may be a burning, stabbing, stinging or throbbing pain. The affected limb is often extremely sensitive to touch. Even light stroking or the weight of clothing can cause severe pain.
What triggers CRPS?
In more than 90 percent of cases, CRPS is triggered by nerve trauma or injury to the affected limb that damages the thinnest sensory and autonomic nerve fibers.
Can you get surgery for CRPS?
Surgery on an extremity affected with CRPS is generally avoided because of the risk that the symptoms will recur or worsen. 29–31Unfortunately, as many as 6–10% of patients with CRPS may require surgery on the affected extremity.
How bad is CRPS?
Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) causes pain that can be severe, constant, and completely perplexing. In the worst cases, CRPS causes the loss of mobility and function. If you develop pain in the aftermath of an injury or trauma that lasts longer than six months, seek your doctor’s counsel.
What is complex regional nerve syndrome?
Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) is a chronic nerve pain condition that usually affects the arms, legs, hands or feet. CRPS can occur after injury or trauma and is believed to be caused by damage to, or malfunction of, the nervous system.
What is treatment of complex regional pain syndrome?
Doctors use various medications to treat the symptoms of complex regional pain syndrome. Pain relievers. Over-the-counter (OTC) pain relievers — such as aspirin, ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin IB, others) and naproxen sodium (Aleve) — may ease mild pain and inflammation. Antidepressants and anticonvulsants.
Is CRPS a neuropathic pain syndrome?
Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) types 1 and 2 are neuropathic pain conditions that have a long history in the medical literature but whose pathophysiology remains elusive and whose available treatment options remain few.
What is the history of CRPS complex regional pain syndrome?
Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, formerly known as Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy , was first described in the mid-16th Century . However it was then later more commonly known in the descriptions during the American Civil War by Silas Weir Mitchell. For more information about the history of CRPS, why not visit What is CRPS/RSD
