Dolores - Spokane, Washington

On 1st November 2000, I fell off a chair and broke the humerus bone in the left arm. I was sent to the emergency room. There they only took a x ray of my upper arm and said that because of the break they could not put it in a cast and so they put it in a sling for a couple of months. I was to do simple exercises' like letting my arm dangle and rotate it around. I noticed that my hand and arm were swelling and would call the doctor but could only get to talk to a Physician Assistant. He would tell me that that was not unusual and to lay flat on my back with my arm up to the ceiling and the swelling would go down. This would help at first, but then the pain would come back again. I kept telling the Doctor that the pain was as bad as the original fracture.

Then they took more X-rays because I kept complaining about my elbow and they wondered if it had been broken in the fall and they had missed it. The X-rays showed that the bone was healing but my hand still hurt and was continuing to swell. Next, they sent me for an evaluation by an Anaesthesiologist. I began to feel I was just being shuffled from doctor to doctor because they really didn't know how to handle my problem.

Finally, I started going to a physical therapist who took one look at my arm and hand and said that I had RSD and should go back to my Orthopaedic Doctor. I did this and he sent me to a Doctor of Therapy who confirmed the diagnosis. I continued to have Therapy with a very good therapist who when she saw how my arm and hand was swelling, decided to try an experiment by putting my arm and hand in a tube that they generally use for people who have had a broken ankle. The tube inflates and then decreased and pushes the swelling up and into the body. They did this for about six visits and the swelling subsided. After two more months of suffering the doctor. sent me to a specialist who diagnosed RSD. I went through a lot of therapy, as my hand and wrist and also my whole arm is affected, and I was given neurontin three times a day and pain pills.

My fingers are swollen, the wrist is stiff and I have a lot of pain in my upper arm. But people do not understand what I am going through and sometimes I feel they think I am a hypochondriac. My husband has been wonderful throughout this but I know that he is at his wits ends too.

I feel that doctors should give their patients more attention and be educated more about RSD.