Complex Regional Pain Syndromes (CRPS)

Complex Regional Pain Syndromes(CRPS) has remained a major enigma and a nemesis amongst chronic pain conditions. However, the situation at AIPMR is different in that we routinely achieve CRPS reversal.

Swollen red hand/foot with restricted movements and deformities are CRPS manifestation. Our innovative Ashirvad approach reverses it completely in the past 20 years. The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) has defined CRPS-1 as ‘‘a variety of painful conditions following injury which appears regionally, having a distal predominance of abnormal findings, exceeding in both magnitude and duration the expected clinical course of the inciting event often resulting in significant impairment of motor function and showing variable progression over time’. It may involve any part of the body but is more common in the limbs and gives rise to a very painful hand/ whole upper limb or foot/whole of lower limb.

Signs and Symptoms:

  • The CRPS limb looks angry, red and is swollen as if there is some severe inflammation and infection. However, there is no infection because the patients do not have fever, all the tests that suggest infection like a raised white blood cell count or pus collection are negative.
  • The pains exhibit features of neuropathic pain like shocks, numbness, paradoxical pain in an area perceived as being numb by the patient, tingling, pulling pain and becomes so oversensitive and tender that even a light touch or a breeze from a fan is painful.
  • The most striking symptom is severe stiffness of limb associated with weakness where the patient just cannot do anything with that hand, pick up objects or make a fist or perform any of the fine hand functions like writing, buttoning etc. Even slight movements are extremely painful which makes the patients avoid any movement. As they avoid movements the swelling may come down but the stiffness increases, pain persists or reduces slightly but the moment they try to move the hand both the swelling and pain return with redoubled vigor.
  • When the foot is involved, the foot movements and weight bearing are extremely painful with highly restricted foot and ankle movements. The patient just cant put any weight on that limb and walking is highly compromised.
  • There are no investigations to consistently confirm this diagnosis.
Prevention :
Prolonged immobilization seems to be an important predisposing factor for CRPS. Patients with fractures and limbs in cast for a long time can develop CRPS. Some studies suggest supplementation with vitamin C can prevent occurance of CRPS in such patients. Exercises of the fingers and hand of CRPS feed into this vicious circle to increase the friction and hence the repeated exacerbations. It is as if the limb affected by CRPS-1 experiences a trauma every time the patient attempts physical therapy and hence experiences an exacerbation of their symptoms when they do physiotherapy. It is also a common finding that patients have no symptoms of CRPS as long as their hand is immobilized in a plaster cast and the problems of pain and swelling start only during the mobilization phase after removal of plaster cast. They also complain that it is their fingers that hurt most and later swell, when they try to make a fist. Less movements mean more stiffness, deterioration and no improvement, and little more exercises and the patient deteriorates with exacerbations. Thus intense physiotherapy is usually counterproductive. But since USGDN directly and reliably reverses this worsening it makes intense physiotherapy actually productive. This predictable relief of pain makes the patients gain the confidence to work with the physiotherapist. This makes graded improvement an achievable goal.
Treatments:
We generally begin our treatment with what is called as continuous nerve block. Here we insert a catheter near the nerve plexus supplying the limb which is affected. This is performed under ultrasound guidance and is a very accurate procedure. Patient is sent home with this catheter which is attached to a pump. This pump injects drug at a fixed rate near the nerve plexus and provides continuous pain relief in the CRPS limb. This pain relief is essential for two reasons, due to continuous pain and suffering there is hyperactivity (wind up) of all neural circuits nerve pathways in the spinal cord and the brain. This “pain holiday” allows the reversal of wind up. The second purpose for this treatment is to provide pain relief so that the patient can tolerate the next and the mainstay of the treatment, which is Ultrasound guided Dry Needling of the affected limb. Dry needling relieves the pain within 3 sessions and most patients can appreciate a difference even after just one session. It also reduces the swelling but the most significant aspect of dry needling is its extraordinary effect on stiffness. This is the one effect that every patient reports.
Progress Course With Our Treatment :
It has been our routine observation that
  • The most significant reduction to the patient is the reduction of both rest and movement pains with restoration of sleep disturbances. Once relief is achieved these symptoms do not recur at the original intensity even after intense physiotherapy.
  • Next are the sensory symptoms like hypersensitivity, allodynia (normal touch of clothes, breeze perceived as pain) insect crawling, shocks etc are reduced with each session and relieved within 2- 3 sessions. Once relief is achieved these symptoms do not recur.
  • Pre and Post skin readings.
  • The warmth of CRPS limb is invariably reduced by USGDN as documented by pre post skin temperature readings. This is one of the most obvious and consistent findings in all CRPS patients
  • The swelling takes a day to reduce. The patients present the next day with an obvious reduction of swelling However excessive use of the hand, or intense physiotherapy can cause a recurrence of swelling and warmth but this is usually relieved by next session. We routinely observe that the initial tenosynovial effusion in the hands disappears for good after a week or 10 days and does not recur thereafter.
  • The color changes take about a week to normalize and does not recur thereafter.
  • The improvement of motor changes keep happening all along the treatment period of 20-40days. It is the motor symptoms that take the longest to recover and determine the duration of treatment. Once normalcy is achieved with motor symptoms the treatment is over. The dystonia is replaced by purposeful movements, the range of motion improves at various joints, at the wrist, at the fingers at elbow and all the movements at shoulder. Each session of USGDN causes major global changes at several joints since the whole limb and the neck are addressed at every session.