More googling. More reading posts from people with CRPS.
G's surgeon called again because he had received the imaging report. He told me "good news, the images look great and I don't see anything wrong with her foot. It looks like it's healing beautifully". I told him that I actually didn't find that good news. That I was hopeful he would see something wrong with her foot that would explain her symptoms and would could rule out CRPS.
We got into the pain specialist 2 days later. He asked questions, listened and examined Genevieve. He told us that barring anything wrong with her foot structurally, it looked like an obvious case of emerging CRPS to him. He rattled off a plan including Norco, lumbar sympathetic nerve blocks, lidocaine, gabapentin....I tried to take notes but my mind was going numb. Genevieve said she didn't want to talk and we sat in silence on the way home.
Up until now G had been pretty much been in the dark. I had not shared anything scary with her and I asked her to not dive in and read a bunch of stuff. I explained that while it was her nerves that were misfiring, part of her recovery was psychological because she needed to "trick her brain" to not acknowledge the pain signals. I wasn't sure how that was going to happen, but I asked her to not research this and to trust me.
G was now scared too. Scared of the unknown. In this case, the unknown was less scary than the known.
The next day we had our appointment with the orthopedist at UCSF. This was my last sliver of hope that G didn't have CRPS. I needed this doctor to find something wrong with her foot. I willed him to tell me that she had a bone spur, or was reacting to the metal screws or bone graft. He looked over the X-rays, MRI and examined her. He thought everything looked good. He noted she did still have some inflammation, but nothing too far out of the ordinary. We then told him about the CRPS diagnosis she had received. He said she might have a minor case of it, and to move forward as if it is. Continue with PT and using the foot as much as possible. He also mentioned she could try doing contrast soaks - going back and forth from cold water to hot water to "shock" the nerves. In my hours upon hours of researching CRPS, it was stated time and time again to avoid cold and ice as that could lead to a flare and spreading. We just nodded our heads and thanked him and left. I had read that many doctors have little understanding about CRPS, and this seemed to be the case.
