Because Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) is so painful, patients who suffer from it will mostly pay little attention to any other symptoms or health conditions they may be suffering from, in my experience. CRPS is like a blinding white light, obliterating anything else. I have often said that severe chronic pain will cause almost a numbing effect in the person who suffers from it. I have dubbed this a “pain callous”. Patients who suffer from CRPS experience pain differently from other people. The average CRPS patient will barely blink at even a migraine. I believe that this phenomenon is not yet clearly understood, but that the body adapts to pain to some extent in order to survive, or it would drive you to insanity.
While you are suffering from CRPS, and you have this ‘super power’ that allows your brain to ignore pain and other symptoms that simply cannot compete with the raging pain of CRPS, you may not pay attention to what is commonly referred to as ‘concurrent’ conditions, which are conditions you suffer from in addition to CRPS. These conditions may also harm your health, and definitely deserve your attention.
When you go to your doctor, these conditions may be addressed, but typically they will be treated as separate and often unrelated to CRPS.
However, remember: your body is a whole, not an engine made of separate parts. Every part affects every other part.
Because of the complexity of the nervous system dysfunction responsible for CRPS, the patient will often suffer from other conditions and symptoms also related to the same nervous system dysfunction. Because your health is precious, it is important to understand what these conditions may be, so that the underlying cause may be addressed. Please understand that this topic alone could fill a book, so this is not an exhaustive list of co-concurrent conditions.
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