My active lifestyle led to my fair share of various sports injuries. I got to know my body and its healing processes quite well. So when I was 32 years old and sprained my ankle playing soccer one day in March 1993, I knew that my body's reaction to this injury was anything but normal. Unfortunately, my physician at the time did not have the education or experience to diagnose anything but a severely sprained ankle. Five months had passed before Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD) was correctly diagnosed. I was on crutches, in unbearable pain, and had the classic symptoms of the condition, including extreme temperature changes, burning pain, discoloration, edema, atrophy, hyperalgesia, and nail and hair changes. Once correctly diagnosed, I was referred to an anesthesiologist for "treatment." Unfortunately, treatment consisted of numerous sympathetic nerve blockades over a period of three months, none of which improved my steadily worsening condition.

Let me back up a bit. When a local and well-respected sports medicine doctor correctly diagnosed my condition and referred me to the anesthesiologist for nerve blocks, he told me something very important to gaining control over RSD. He said, "I want you to pool-walk for as long as you can every day, twice a day if possible. You have got to keep using the leg no matter how bad it hurts." I took his advice to heart and for the next year, no matter where I happened to be, or how far I had to drive, I found a pool to walk in every day of the year except for any holidays that pools are not open on. Those missed days were not by choice - there were simply no pools open. In spite of the daily pool walking, the RSD and its symptoms progressed. But I continued pool-walking because it gave my attitude a boost. That daily, inconvenient, painful, dreaded walk was my way of taking action against a condition that had by then taken almost everything else away. This disease had slowly robbed me of my self-confidence, my joy for life, and my independence.

The astute sports medicine physician also noted my anxiety level had steadily increased since the day I had begun developing RSD. Anyone who has had a painful illness go undiagnosed for months can relate to the tremendous fear and distress generated by the absence of a clear diagnosis and treatment plan. He suggested that I seek psychological support to better cope with what he termed to be "the biggest battle you will ever face, the battle against RSD." I took his advice to heart, and psychological support proved to be therapeutic.

While undergoing the nerve blocks, I also participated in physical therapy with a physical therapist who was not experienced with RSD. This probably contributed to the progressive worsening of my condition. Therapy that would be applied for the rehabilitation of a soft tissue injury, such as a sprained ankle, may be too progressive, increasing at a rate that may exacerbate the RSD condition. In addition, I sought other forms of treatment such as acupuncture, Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS), ultrasound, and other alternative therapies. After the period of unsuccessful blocks, the anesthesiologist referred me to the University of Washington Pain Center. A physician there "has a special interest in RSD." Little did I suspect that this referral was to be the beginning of a several-year remission/recovery process.