Introduction

I thought that just in case anyone ever reads these posts, they might want to know a bit more about me. As I stated earlier I am seventeen years old, although I will be eighteen in august. I am a senior in highschool and I will be graduating on May 30th. I have already been accepted to northwest narzarene university and I have my education almost paid for. If you don't count the loan since that is something I will have to pay back, I have over $17,000 in money towards college. I've always worked really hard in school. It's a lot harder for me going to school and having RSD, but I do my best to make it work. I was a competetive roller skater before I got RSD, and I have a bronze medal in the JO qualifying events which allowed me to go to regionals. It was a pretty big deal for me. I probably would have gone far if the pain hadn't become too much for me. My initial injury was to my right heel. I had something called severs disease which basically just means that my growth plate in my right heel became separated. It's apparently pretty common in kids who are involved in sports that strain the feet before their growth plate in their heel fuses. I really don't know when that injury turned into RSD. I know the pain was and still is excruciating, and my leg was very skinny and weak and purple. My mom was always bringing that up to my doctors. She'd be concerned but they would tell her it was no big deal. Maybe if they had paid more attention to my moms complaints I could have been diagnosed sooner. Right now I seem to have a very general version of RSD. My pain is very widespread, I am extremely sensitive throughout my body, not just my legs anymore. But I no longer have the discoloration, and I haven't had it since surgery, PT, and meds got me up out of the wheelchair. So I don't know. Some people get better with therapy, others don't. Some people say that RSD is localized, others tell me it can spread. So I don't know if my RSD has just spread throughout my body since it took so long to diagnose, or if it is something else. I don't know if it is possible to have both, but I actually have a lot of the symptoms of Fibromyalgia now. Horrible pain every day, I never have any energy, and yet at night I can't sleep. I get alot of headaches. I have IBS and I also have idiopathic cystosis which just means unexplained bladder pain. I seem to get sick all the time. I get headaches pretty much every day. I now have really bad acid reflex as well. I wish I could say I was on a huge list of meds cuz then maybe I would be improving more, but as it is we are battling with our insurance and so I really don't have much help. I have a TENS unit which I use alot and it seems to help some. I go to acupuncture which for some strange reason also helps. I am on 50mg of elavil, I take naproxen, I have some hormone stuff, I take prilosec for my heartburn, this other stuff cuz I feel nausous all the time now, and of course I'm probably killing my liver with all the advil I take. I'd say on an average day I take anywhere from 6-12 advils. I am going to a pediatric GI specialist on May 12th and soon I would like to see a pediatric rheumotologist to see about getting my pain levels a bit more manageable. I can stand about ten minutes...and I can walk short distances. My legs and feet turn in at a weird angle and my ankles are weird, I have custom supports in my shoes that help me to hold my ankles at a proper angle. We think alot of these problems stem from my RSD. I came home from school early today because I wasn't feeling good, my legs were giving me problems, I had a headache, and we weren't doing much of anything in sociology.