Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS)

Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is an uncommon chronic pain syndrome that usually occurs after an injury, surgery, stroke or heart attack to a specific body part or parts – usually beginning in an extremity, where the pain is out of proportion to the severity of the injury or not related to any injury. CRPS is a localised version of the nervous system damage also shown in fibromyalgia, where the nerve endings lose their ability to judge sensation accurately.

SYMPTOMS:

• Continuous burning or throbbing pain, usually in the arm, leg, hand or foot
• Sensitivity to touch or cold
• Swelling of the painful area
• Changes in skin temperature not relative to environment— at times skin may be sweaty; at other times it may be cold
• Changes in skin colour, which can range from white and mottled to red or blue
• Changes in skin texture, which may become tender, thin or shiny in the affected area
• Changes in hair and nail growth
• Joint stiffness, swelling and damage
• Muscle spasms, weakness and loss (atrophy)
• Decreased ability to move the affected body part

Symptoms may change over time and vary from person to person. Pain, swelling, redness, noticeable changes in temperature and hypersensitivity (particularly to cold and touch) usually appear first.

OTHER NAMES:

Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD)

Sudeck’s atrophy

Reflex Neurovascular Dystropgy (RND)

Algoneurodystrophy

Shoulder-hand syndrome

RSDS

Causalgia – RSD