Tips you told us
from your experience of RSD/CRPS

Scrubbing away the pain

I stumbled across this website and storyboard through an RSD Chronic Pain group I am in. I developed RSD following carpal tunnel surgery and sympathize with everyone that has this dread disease. I hope my story can offer hope to some of you. After six months of pain, burning and swelling I was put into a month long pain management program at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago where they have had great success treating RSD through a little known therapy called "scrubbing." This technique can be used for either RSD of the hand or foot. What you do is get a scrub brush. The Rehabilitation Institute supplied mine but they can be purchased online at graingers.com. It is the first scrub brush that pops up after performing a search on their website. What you do for RSD in the hand is get down on your hands and knees and with the scrub brush in the affected hand place all your weight on the brush and scrub forward and backward keeping your arm as straight as possible and not dropping your shoulder. I did this 3 times a day for 10 minutes at a time and within 5 months I was in remission. The RSD did flare really bad at first but over time I could see my symptoms improving. People have asked me do you need to use water to do this and the answer is no. Any solid surface will work. They doctors think this back and forth scrubbing motion does something to the sympathetic nervous system and turns off the "overdrive" it has been in since the injury. If you have RSD in the foot you use the same technique only you're standing of course and the scrub brush is attached to your foot with a piece of elastic. Believe me I was really skeptical about this but it did put me into remission which I am so grateful for. I was also taking 800 milligrams of Neurontin 5 times a day which is one of the better known drugs for treating RSD. I was also on a trycyclic antidepressant called Doxepin which when taken affects the healing process in your body but also makes you very sleep so they must be taken at bedtime. If anyone would care to correspond with me about this you can email me at jcgizzie@aol.com. May everyone who reads this have a relatively pain-free day and don't give up hope.

© J C Gizzie
2003