Powerball & CRPS / Reflex Sympathic Dsytrophy

[imports]

Hi All,

I've recently purchased my first powerball, intially to help with recovery from possible Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. However things are a little more complicated than that - 9 weeks ago I had surgery to de-compress my ulnar nerve, the surgery went okay at the time.

However within four weeks of surgery I started to get really bad pain with my wrist. I mentioned this to the surgeon during a follow up appointment and he didn't seem to be overly concerned. However things went from bad to worse within a week or so and the pain started to increase.

At this point I went back to my GP who instantly informed me that I had carpal tunnel syndrome and that I would require a second operation.... Fair enough I thought, I wasn't very happy but least it was resolveable.

The pain then started to get far, far worse with pins & needles, stabbing pains and stiffness from the tips of my finger to the shoulder socket, with purple cold then hot fingers, swelling fingers and hand, plus sweaty palm - All sorts of strange stuff going on.

Within weeks I was seen again by a member of the team that performed the ulnar surgery and to cut a long story short, I don't have carpal tunnel syndrome at all.

But Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) sometimes known as Reflex Sympathetic Dsytrophy it's kind of hard to explain - The main feature is chronic pain in the affected limb, as all the nerves go into overdrive - I'm still learning about the condition as it's been less that three days since diagnosis.

But I'd be interested to know if anyone else suffers from this condition, do you find that a Powerball helps in any way ?

Mark

[jihmmie]

Instead of googling all the medical definitions, I think I'll let Physioblue handle this one.....He's our resident expert on the recovery side of powerballing. Kind of like an Akis in rehabilitation...

[The Force]

I am not an expert in the medical field, but I do want to wish you a good recovery dude. Sounds really awful what you describe their. I can only hope that powerballing will help (but I think you then should do it at low/moderate speeds for longer periods).

Regards,

The Force

[Physioblue]

Been away for the weekend, sorry to take so long to reply.
CRPS is a absolute pain. If you pardon the accidental pun.
Ultimately it comes from confused nerves, they are reporting that things aren't healing even though they are. They ask your body to increase the healing in the arm and this causes swelling, redness, heat and of course, pain. And lots of it. You have my pity.
Theoretically anything that forces your arm to realise that things aren't all that bad, is good for you. And that includes powerballing. HOWEVER.....The research suggests that the first line of attack is to do weight bearing exercise. That is, putting your hand on a table and leaning your bodyweight over it. In this position you move your body backwards and forwards so that your wrist moves with it.
Another thing that has recently been shown to help alot is to do exercises with a mirror. Put you hands either side of a mirror and try moving both together. While you do this, look at you good hand in the mirror. The image fools your body into believing its looking at the "bad" hand and seeing it move normally can be enough to reset the brain.

Any exercise will be "rewarded" with pain and swelling initially and persevering through this and knowing that it isn't causing actual harm is the key to beating this. Personally I would go with weightbearing exercise and mirror exercise first and then add powerballing when your confidence improves.

Google "mirror boxes" for more information. Most are ridiculously expensive but the theory is useful.

Good luck

[Physioblue]

http://www.reflexpainmanagement.com/ ............. has the mirror boxes we use at work. They are patent pending, so they are currently about a 5th of the price of mirror boxes that already have patents.
This website should help.


Note to admins - I am not trying to push a rival product, just a product to use alongside a powerball. If you think I am being inappropriate, please let me know and by all means remove the link.
I am only trying to help.

[jihmmie]

The mirror therapy really looks weird. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. Well, I've seen boxes and I've seen mirrors, who would have thought to combine the two and make millions of sales?