Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, also known as CRPS is a debilitaing chronic pain condition which I have suffered from for 5 years!! Although I have other health conditions along side this CRPS is a very prominent condition among my health.
Yes most people think they understand pain, but do they really!! They may understand acute pain which is short term pain. But chronic pain is a completely different kettle of fish. Chronic pain is always there, it is there minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, week by week, month by month and year by year. There is no let up from chronic pain and it is horrible, debilitating, mentally straining and incredibly hard to deal with.
I have had the condition for several years now and I can't remember a day without pain, I cant remember a day when I was carefree and did not have to think about the pain. To be honest when things went wrong with my knee, I thought all would be good and I would have physio, maybe an operation and then I would be back to my sport and back to a normal life, well after the first operation initially I did well but I was still in extreme pain 3 months after the operation so I got sent to Pain Management, and had treatment there but there was still physical problems with my knee I had more and more surgery and to this day I have had six surgeries on my knee, although there is still a major problem in terms of having a degenerative disease in my knee and hip, CRPS also plays a big part in the problem.
I have had every treatment under the sun and nothing has worked, I have no muscle around my leg I am in a knee brace and on a lot of medication including Morphine, Pregabaline, Paracetamol, Omeprazole, Naproxen and Trazadone, this is all for pain relief throughout the day.
It is a hard condition to live with and I am on crutches, cant put weight on my leg and am in extreme pain all of the time but I am not like this out of choice, some people think you choose to be on crutches, but at the end of the day it isnt a choice its a must because the pain is so bad. It is a hard condition to understand and initially my parents did not understand and it caused arguments and I was in a negative environment where there was screaming and shouting all of the time. I felt I couldn't talk to anyone about how it felt, people were telling me I was faking it. But I wasn't and I am not faking it at all.
Eventually I found I could speak to a member of staff at the school I went too and this was a chance to get all of my anger and frustration out. But when I got home it all changed back to the shouting and screaming. I felt alone, isolated and I was in extreme agony. But no one understood.
This is the problem, chronic pain is a rare condition and it is also a very lonely condition, I have experienced the loneliness of it and I still feel that way sometimes today. Its a horrible situation to be in the pain is extreme agony and that is not over exaggerating, it is one of the worse conditions to suffer with and this is shown on the Mcgill Pain scale.
To this day I am still carrying on with physio exercises in the hope it will get better , but after suffering with it for so many years it is unlikely and some people manage it well others don't it depends on the body but the longer that you dont make progress with it the more and more likely that you arent going to make improvement. It is a life long neurological condition, and it should be treated just like any other painful condition, there should be more understanding of it from loved ones, medical professionals and people who are close to the sufferer.
I wouldn't wish this on anyone even my worse enemy.
If you want more information on my story please email me on hughesy_1993@hotmail.com
