My left foot/ankle very swollen and holy cow, I am hurting - Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Message Board

RoseinSanDiego · 05-09-2009, 01:03 AM

Hi everyone,
I haven't written in a while. My pain has increased, and today my left ankle is very swollen. My RSD is in my left foot and ankle, due to some surgery that I had in July 07. I was doing pretty good. Got through the initial "oh my gosh, I'm terrified" stage and was able to keep it controlled (for lack of a better word) with meds.
Okay, so there's gotta be somebody out there who can give me the scoop on why I'm badly swollen. My next doc appt is June 29th, but can go sooner if need be.
It's very late and I'm very tired. We've got baseballin themorning, so I need some sleep.
Take good care,
Deb

tigerlily11 · 05-09-2009, 11:37 AM

Hi Deb,

I ask the same question and have the same issue going on!! I try to look for patterns of the swellng and the pain..
For me, the swelling is least in the morning when I wake up...and most by the time I get off work at 6...

And then if I do any amount of walking which as you know is so minimal, I swell even more.

Things that take the swelling away are elevating my legs above my heart when I get home from work!! I have to admit, I eat dinner on the couch with my feet up high, and eat my dinner watching Seinfeld reruns (they make me laugh) maybe that helps my swelling, too lol. I have to do this for at least an hour and a half for the swelling to come down.

The other thing that has helped my swelling is the aqua therapy pool..but I have to be cautious in the aqua therapy pool because while it does reduce my swelling, it can also aggravate the pain if I am too vigourous with walking on the ball of my foot, and foot movement in general...even "cycling" in the water can bring on the pain....but it does reduce the swelling.

Really, the swelling is RANDOM !! Some days it can be a lot and then it goes down and my ankle almost looks normal...although it never FEELS normal !!!!
On Thursday morning my foot doc administered three injections directly into three nerves....the tibial plantar nerve and the deep and superficial peroneal nerves in my ankle...mostly lidocaine with a very small amount of cortizone.

I also went to my chiropractor on Thursday evening as I have back/hip sacroiliac and sciatica stuff going on and it was all raging !! ...she said my muscles were so tight and constricted that they are irritating all the nerves radiating down the leg that could also be adding to the pain..

Then her wonderful massage technician gave me an hour massage on all those tight muscles in my back, legs, upper back, all over. I had never had a massage and OMG, it was so healing and wonderful and my muscles relaxed and I felt so much looser. i KNOW my sympathetic nerve was happy to be relaxed! It was well worth the cost..he gave me an hour massage for 1/2 price...
that was so kind!!

I hope you have some relief today and enjoyed baseball!!
Happy Mother's day to you and to everyone!!
many hugs,
Tigerlily xoxo

Gaollan · 05-09-2009, 05:45 PM

Unfortunately swelling is just part of rsd and there's not much you can do about it. Mine was bad in the beginning. Elevating my leg higher than my body kept it to a minimum but as soon as I got up, to go to the bathroom, in seconds it would swell to 3 x's normal! I'm weird anyway, thought I'd say that before I go on. When I learned to walk on my own again, my swelling disappeared! Still don't understand it to this day and neither does anyone else. LOL I have very minor swelling in my ankles and just recently realized it is doing it in my knees. They never swell badly though. My fingers have gotten bad but only when I was moving and had to do a lot with my hands.

Sorry you're having such a problem. Hope today was good for you.

Hugs,

Karen

geezerbride · 05-12-2009, 05:21 PM

I,ve been suffering for 2 1/2 years with horrible pain in both feet. Have been taking gabapentin 600 mg 4 times a day, pristiq 50mg once a day, and seroquel 150 mg at night to help me sleep. If anyone knows what will help with the pain, please let me know.
I have tried everything from codine to morphine, oxycotin and just about everything else. I cannot function when I take the pain meds so i just suffer during the day. Some days I cannot walk my feet hurt so bad. On those days I take the pain meds and am done for the day. I am so glad I have found someone else that knows just how bad we hurt with this disease.
Let me hear from you,
Sandra